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Oil and Water: Photographs by Carleton Watkins at Santa Paula California Oil Museum
 By Anonymous — Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
Oil and Water: Photographs by Carleton Watkins Presented by the City of Santa Paula’s California Oil Museum SANTA PAULA, CA – On November 20, 2011, the California Oil Museum (1001 E. Main Street, Santa Paula, CA 93060) will debut its most ambitious and significant exhibit of photography in over sixty years. Featuring fourteen mammoth and whole-plate photographs, Oil and Water: Photographs by Carleton Watkins offers extraordinary views of the California frontier captured by the famous nineteenth-century photographer. In addition to his breathtaking images of Yosemite, Watkins (1829-1916) documented early Californians’ desperate quest for oil and water which provides the focus for the exhibit. The Museum will host an opening reception and book signing on November 20th from 1 to 3 pm to which the public is invited. Oil and Water was inspired and supported by curating consultant Weston Naef, curator emeritus in the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum and co-author of Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs. Naef will be the guest of honor at the exhibit’s opening reception and will sign copies of his incredible new catalogue and discuss “the extraordinary body of work produced by Watkins between 1858 and 1891 which constitutes one of the longest and most productive careers in nineteenth-century American photography.” Recently published by the J. Paul Getty Museum, the catalogue includes “nearly thirteen hundred “mammoth” (18 x 22 inch) glass plate negatives, the majority of which exist in only one surviving print. Of these, fewer than three hundred have been previously reproduced or exhibited.” Four of these rare mammoth-plate photographs will be on display at the California Oil Museum. Watkins’ mammoth-plate photograph entitled California Star Oil Works is the centerpiece of the exhibit. The 1877 photograph depicts Well No. 4 in Pico Canyon oilfield near Newhall, CA which in 1876 produced a gusher for California Star Oil Works and effectively began the commercial oil industry in California. The success of that well gave birth to countless new oil companies at the end of the nineteenth-century, including Union Oil Company of California. The original headquarters of Union Oil Company is now home to the California Oil Museum and is, as Assistant Museum Educator Julie Cluster described, “the perfect context for such an exhibit.” WHO: The City of Santa Paula’s California Oil Museum WHAT: Oil and Water: Photographs by Carleton Watkins WHEN: Opening Reception and Book Signing, November 20, 2011 from 1 to 3 pm The exhibit runs November 20, 2011 to February 12, 2012 (Museum Hours: Wednesday WHERE: 1001 E. Main Street Santa Paula, CA 93060 WHY: To celebrate the work of photographer Carleton Watkins and the recent publication of his |
