Join Marina Dawn Wells, Assistant Curator at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, on Sunday, September 13th at 7:30 PM ET via Zoom for a look back at nineteenth century studio photography in a rapidly changing New England city.

“Look pleasant, please,” George F. Parlow (1826-1890) reportedly said to sitters when they faced the camera in his studio.

The current exhibition, “Look pleasant, please”: Early Portrait Photography in New Bedford, highlights the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s collection of portrait photographs made between the time of photography’s invention in 1839 and the start of a new century in the 1900s.

This exhibition features examples of early photography, such as daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, cartes-de-visite, cabinet cards, gelatin silver prints, and albums; celebrates the studio photographers who moved the medium forward in New Bedford; and examines the unique cultural landscape that unfolded around them.

PHSNE members Sid Chatterjee, Dana Gee, Steve Goldstein, Kevin Janesch, Peter and Barbara Schultz, and John Wojtowicz made a field trip to the New Bedford Whaling Museum to see the exhibition in June, and were led on a guided tour by Naomi Slipp, Douglas and Cynthia Crocker Endowed Chair for the Chief Curator.

We now thank Wells for bringing the exhibition to our September meeting so more members can experience it. The exhibit, which was featured in the June issue of snap shots, will be on display through September 7th.

Marina Dawn Wells is the Assistant Curator of History and Culture at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. The speaker, who holds a doctorate in American Studies from Boston University, has held fellowships at such institutions as the Winterthur Museum, Mystic Seaport Museum, and the Nantucket Historical Association.

At New Bedford, Wells curated an exhibition of coastal photography titled Reflections, and an exhibition of prints and paintings named Entangled in the Lines: Figuring Moby-Dick, in addition to the current “Look pleasant, please”: Early Photo Portraiture in New Bedford.

More information about the exhibition is available at https://www.whalingmuseum.org/exhibition/look-pleasant-please-early-portrait-photography-in-new-bedford/.

Zoom details will be sent to our newsletter list the week before the presentation. If you haven’t already, sign up to receive notifications here.