Photographs bring Civil War experience to life

CEDAR RAPIDS - When the first shots of the Civil War were fired, photography was still a fairly new art form.

Over the four years of the war, from 1861 to 1865, photographers captured images of the destruction caused by the conflict and the impact it had on the people involved. For the first time, it brought real images of war into American's living rooms.

Now, to mark the sesquicentennial of the war, the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art is displaying some of those original photographs.

'This collection makes real something that happened 150 years ago,” museum executive director Sean Ulmer says. 'These photographs have a wonderful way of making real what the Civil War experience was.”

The exhibit, 'Shadows of History: Photographs of the Civil War from the Collection of Julia J. Norrell,” opens Oct. 11 and will remain on display until January 18. Norrell, a private collector who lives in Washington, D.C., has gathered 43 photographs for the exhibit from many of the major photographers of the era, including George Barnard, Issac H. Bonsall, Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, James F. Gibson, Timothy H. O'Sullivan, Andrew J. Russell and David B. Woodbury.

The technology of the time required subjects to hold perfectly still to be captured on film, so documenting the action of the battles themselves wasn't possible. Instead, photographers showed before and after scenes. Some feature dead bodies; others, ruined buildings and ravaged landscapes.

Other images portray daily life for the soldiers and others caught up in the war. Some show the physical impact on their bodies - most of the 620,000 casualties of the war occurred outside of battle, from infected wounds, starvation, disease and exposure to the elements.

'It's sort of hard for people to wrap their heads around the idea of 620,000 lives,” Ulmer said. 'There's something rather quiet about these photos, but in that, they're also quite moving,”

The exhibit also includes many photos depicting black Americans' experiences in the war, from all-black regiments who fought for the North to newly emancipated former slaves continuing to farm the plantation of their former master, who is now dead or gone.

'These photos show their underappreciated role in the Civil War,” Ulmer says. 'One thing that's attractive about this collection is it tells more than just one story.”

In addition, a major installation piece featuring a life-size portrait of a black soldier, by internationally-recognized contemporary artist Whitfield Lovell, will accompany the photographs.

A second exhibit, opening at the same time as the photography installation in an adjacent gallery, will feature portraits of Abraham Lincoln by Iowa City artist Mauricio Lasansky. Much of Lasanky's work has already been displayed at the museum, but these portraits have been held in reserve specifically for this Civil War-themed exhibition.

'We've been waiting for the right show to exhibit these,” Ulmer said.

The exhibits come with over three months of related-educational programming, starting with a symposium held in conjunction with the African American Museum of Iowa. The event will bring several speakers to discuss photography and the African-American experience in the war. Speakers include photographic historian and independent curator Will Stapp, collector Judy Norrell, National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian Institution chief curator Jackie Serwer and University of Northern Iowa author and lecturer Ken Lyftogt.

Other events include a photo scavenger hunt, a discussion of medical photography during the Civil War and a performance by an Abraham Lincoln impersonator, who will recite Lincoln's speeches with the accompaniment of the Liberty Band, a Civil War re-enactment group.

'The show affords us the opportunity to really contextualize the photographs and to talk about Lincoln,” Ulmer said.

FYI: If you go

The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art has events planned into the 2015 in conjuction with the Shadows of History: Photographs of the Civil War. All events are free and take place at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, 410 Third Ave. SE, unless otherwise noted. For more information about these programs, visit crma.org.