Untroubled Waters: Navigating Early Photographs gathers a focused group of 19th-century images that place water, transport and industrial change at the center of photography’s early history. On view through August 20, 2026 at Hans P. Kraus JR., the exhibition brings together British and French works by William Henry Fox Talbot, Gustave Le Gray, Charles Nègre, Paul-Marcellin Berthier, Robert Howlett, J. B. Greene and others.
The pictures share a common subject but not a single mood. Talbot’s view of Cambridge’s Bridge of Sighs turns the River Cam into a quiet study of light and reflection, with long exposure rendering the water as a pale, almost solid surface. Le Gray approaches the sea differently. His naval views, including the scene of the French and English fleets at Cherbourg, combine technical control with a sense of scale that made his seascapes some of the most admired photographs of the period.
Several works also register the industrial ambitions of the age. Robert Howlett’s photographs of the Great Eastern, commissioned during the ship’s construction, capture the ship not simply as machinery but as a national symbol of size, speed and engineering confidence. The vessel, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, remained an emblem of Victorian ambition even as its commercial future collapsed. Paul-Marcellin Berthier’s image of the Bineau Bridge places photography in dialogue with painting, anticipating later river scenes by Seurat and van Gogh and pointing to the way photographers and painters were observing the same modern landscape.
J. B. Greene’s Egyptian photographs add another register entirely. Made during his travels as both photographer and archaeologist, they move beyond description toward atmosphere, with the riverboat-dahabiyya functioning as home, darkroom and sign of movement through place. Taken together, the works in Untroubled Waters show early photography at its most inventive: attentive to water, but equally attentive to what water made possible — trade, travel, spectacle and shifting ideas of modernity.
Image: Charles Nègre (French, 1820-1880). La rade de "Toulon," September 1852. Salt print from a paper negative.
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