"William Keith"

gelatin silver print (Charcoal black) sandwich-mounted in album page with printed paper descriptions on mount, bound in black full canvas boards

stamped title Dassonville Charcoal Black on front cover

William Dassonville, also a chemist and one-time neighbor of Ansel Adams, produced his own photographic papers and emulsions for artistic effects in his prints and later expanded his business to include the manufacture of photographic papers, such as his famous "Charcoal Black." His photographic paper, used by Ansel Adams and Imogen Cunningham, among others, brought Dassonville short-term commercial success, but it plummeted as rejection of pictorialist photography grew in the 1930s.
The print is part of a sample book as an example of the various papers and effects Dassonville achieved with his beautiful Charcoal Black papers.
(Bassange, 2023)

As a Pictorialist he strove for harmonious compositions that emulated paintings in order for his prints to be considered fine art and used soft focus and a limited tonal range to idealize his subjects. As a result, his poetic images go against the inherent nature of photography as a mirror of reality―during a period of marked industrialization in Northern California.
(McIntosh Collection)

The painting shows a portrait of the distinguished painter William Keith (1838–1911). Originally from Scotland, the landscape painter explored Yosemite Valley with John Muir, the naturalist, and made some great paintings of it (more on Keith's connection to Yosemite Valley). Keith first visited the valley in 1868, but returned to the Sierras again and again, sometimes with landscape photographer Carleton Watkins. The Dassonville connection probably also came about through John Muir, founder and president of the Sierra Club, the oldest and largest conservation organization in the United States.
(Christoph Fuchs)