Gateway of Cemetery, Gettysburg

Alexander Gardner

Timothy O'Sullivan

July, 1863

A mid‑19th‑century albumen photograph by Timothy O’Sullivan that records the brick gateway to the Gettysburg National Cemetery, made to document the cemetery and the recent battle’s aftermath.

You’re struck by the solemn stillness: a heavy brick arch centered in the frame, surrounded by churned earth, scattered wagons and small, slightly blurred figures and horses that suggest recent activity beneath a wide, pale sky.

Taken days after the Battle of Gettysburg, the photograph exemplifies how Civil War photographers used the medium to transform battlefields into sites of public memory and to establish documentary photography as a tool for historical record and national mourning.

Palette

Exhibitions

Photographs of the Civil War and the American Frontier

1942

Photographs Before Surrealism

1968

American Art Portfolio

1936

Road to Victory

1942