Battlefields, Appomattox (Star in the East)

Sally Mann, Battlefields, Appomattox (Star in the East), 2001, printed 2003, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Daniel Sallick and Elizabeth Miller, 2012.42, © 1998, Sally Mann
Sally Mann, Battlefields, Appomattox (Star in the East), 2001, printed 2003, gelatin silver print, sheet and image: 48 1⁄2 x 38 1⁄2 in. (123.2 x 97.8 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Daniel Sallick and Elizabeth Miller, 2012.42, © 1998, Sally Mann

Artwork Details

Title
Battlefields, Appomattox (Star in the East)
Artist
Date
2001, printed 2003
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
sheet and image: 48 1⁄2 x 38 1⁄2 in. (123.2 x 97.8 cm)
Copyright
© 1998, Sally Mann
Credit Line
Gift of Daniel Sallick and Elizabeth Miller
Mediums Description
gelatin silver print
Classifications
Object Number
2012.42
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2012.42

Artwork Description

Untitled [Appomattox #26] is an elegy to the hundreds of lives lost at Appomattox, one of the final battles of the American Civil War. Sally Mann spent two years traveling to battlefields across Maryland and Virginia, focusing on land where the deadliest combat took place. By using the wet-plate collodion process to make her negatives, Mann transports the viewer back to the Civil War era when the process was first used. She developed the photographs from the back of her pick-up, allowing dust and other particles into the developing liquid. This technique produced a scarred, hazy effect that lends an antique finish to the photograph. Mann was born in a Lexington home formerly owned by famed Confederate general Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. This personal connection to the war informs her work from this series, known as Last Measure, which meditates on painful war memories that still pervade the South.


A Democracy of Images: Photographs of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2013

Works by this artist (29 items)

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Karl Schrag, Noon Sun through Clouds, 1975, aquatint with stencilled color on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1993.38.8, © 1975, Karl Schrag
Noon Sun through Clouds
Artist
Date1975
aquatint with stencilled color on paper
Not on view
Karl Schrag, Dark Trees at Noon, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Woodward Foundation, 1976.108.103
Dark Trees at Noon
Artist
Not on view
Karl Schrag, Sunflowers at Sundown, 1970, color etching, aquatint and stencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1975.70
Sunflowers at Sundown
Artist
Date1970
color etching, aquatint and stencil on paper
Not on view
Karl Schrag, Of Island Nights, Sickle Moon and Birches, 1989, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Michael J. Ettner, 2021.88.245
Of Island Nights, Sickle Moon and Birches
Artist
Date1989
lithograph on paper
Not on view

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Alice Pike Barney, Beatrice, ca. 1907, pastel on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Laura Dreyfus Barney and Natalie Clifford Barney in memory of their mother, Alice Pike Barney, 1951.14.7
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