Masterworks of American photography.

• Position: Museum Today

More than 50 images from the Amon Carter Museum's holdings of over 30,000 photographs are on display in the rotating exhibition, "Masterworks of American Photography." Twice a year, visitors are able to view and enjoy a new selection of the finest examples of the medium's different artistic movements by the country's most important photographers.

Included in the current "Masterworks" exhibition is the work of:

Carleton E. Watkins (1829-1916), who primarily was a landscape photographer--the Ansel Adams of his time. After working as a daguerreotype operator in San Jose, Calif., he established his own practice and soon made his first visit to the Yosemite Valley. There, he made 100 stereograph views that were among the first photographs of Yosemite seen in the East. Partly on the strength of Watkins' photographs, Pres. Abraham Lincoln signed the 1864 bill that declared the valley inviolable, thus paving the way for the National Parks system.

Isaiah W. Taber (1830-1912), who acquired the negatives of Carleton E. Watkins--he had gone bankrupt--in 1.876, made prints with his name on them although he kept Watkins' numbers. He was well known for his large stock of California views. He lost his enormous collection of 20 tons of view and portrait glass negatives in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, a tragedy that ended his career.

George Barker (1844-94), who was the most famous of all the Niagara-based photographers, was well-liked and successful, winning 11 international awards. Like most other Niagara photographers, however, Barker needed other means to make ends meet, so he operated a variety store, selling curios, souvenirs, and photographs.

William Henry Jackson (1843-1942), who is considered one of America's foremost photographers of the early West, had a long career that was intertwined with a large number of important events and institutions, including the early U.S. Geological Surveys, the Yellowstone and Mesa Verde National Parks...