COLLECTION NAME:
The AMICA Library
Record
AMICA ID:
CMA_.2002.50
AMICA Library Year:
2003
Object Type:
Photographs
Creator Name:
Rau, William H.
Creator Nationality:
American
Creator Role:
artist
Creator Dates/Places:
1855 - 1920
Biography:
William H. Rau American, 1855-1920William Herman Rau was a Philadelphian with close ties to that city's photographic activities. The son of photographer George Rau, William married Louise Bell, daughter of photographer William Bell. He had worked for Bell until purchasing his father-in-law's company in 1878. Louise Bell Rau later exhibited her own work in pictorialist circles. Among Rau's other associates were his brother George, with whom he opened a photographic studio in 1885, the well-known photographic publisher Edward L. Wilson, and John Moran, brother of landscape artist Thomas Moran. In 1874 Rau had joined an international expedition to the South Seas to photograph the transit of Venus, working with John Moran on the project. He then worked intermittently in the southwest United States, including a period with William Henry Jackson. In 1881 he accompanied Edward Wilson to Egypt, where he made an extensive set of stereoviews and possibly some larger prints, although these have never been identified. He worked in Philadelphia during the Centennial Exposition of 1876 and was later the official photographer for the St. Louis Exposition of 1904 and the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland. Best known for his railroad and landscape images, Rau was hired in 1890 by the Pennsylvania Railroad and in 1899 by the Lehigh Valley Railroad, for which he produced a series of views from Perth Amboy, New Jersey, to Buffalo and Niagara Falls. He also recorded the Johnstown flood and the 1904 Baltimore fire. Today, Rau is important for his position linking, through subject and style, key aspects of photography in the 19th and 20th centuries. T.W.F.
Gender:
M
Creator Birth Place:
Philadelphia, PA
Creator Death Place:
Philadelphia, PA
Creator Name-CRT:
William H. Rau
Title:
Hemlock Forest, Lehigh Valley Railroad
Title Type:
Primary
View:
Full View
Creation Date:
c. 1895
Creation Start Date:
1890
Creation End Date:
1900
Materials and Techniques:
albumen print from wet collodion negative
Classification Term:
Photograph
Style or Period:
America, 19th century
Dimensions:
Image: 43.2cm x 51.8cm, Mounted: 43.5cm x 52.5cm
AMICA Contributor:
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Owner Location:
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
ID Number:
2002.50
Credit Line:
John L. Severance Fund
Inscriptions:
printed in white at bottom of image; "630 HEMLOCK FOREST LV.R.R." "WILLIAM H. RAU, PHILA"
Related Image Identifier Link:
CMA_.2002.50.tif
Link To Source
Hemlock Forest, Lehigh Valley Railroad
