Events

Send us information about art/photo events for listing here. Before traveling, confirm dates and times. For details about Center exhibits, see Exhibits.

Beebe and Clegg on the Comstock

Photo by Charles M. Clegg

May 2008 through April 2009, Main Exhibit Hall, Comstock History Center, 20 North "E" Street, Virginia City, Nevada. An exhibit of photographs and ephemera sponsored by the Comstock History Center and the Center for Railroad Photography and Art. The Center's publication, "Railroading Journeys," Railroad Heritage® No. 18, provides background about the exhibit and the life and times of Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg, whose books changed the way Americans think about--and look at--railroads and railroading.

The West the Railroads Made

Through January 24, 2009, Washington State History Museum, 1911 Pacific Avenue, Tacoma, Washington 98402, http://stories.washingtonhistory.org/Railroads/. This exhibition explains that the story of railroads is a story of transformation. By bringing in immigrants, railroads changed the character of the region's population. By building depots, bridges and tunnels, it changed the area's landscape. By promoting agriculture, ranching and mining on a grand scale, it changed the people's way of life. Railroads brought the modern world to the West and the West to the modern world. "The West the Railroads Made" recounts how the idea of a Pacific railroad grew through the 1840s and 1850s, how it came to life in the second half of the 19th century, and how it reconceived itself to survive new challenges by the late 20th century. The exhibit features more than 80 artifacts, including rare railroad ephemera, photographs, paintings and other three-dimensional pieces. The Washington State Historical Society and the John W. Barriger III Railroad Library at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, organized the exhibit.

Remembering Steam Locomotives: Photographs by Frank Barry

June 28–August 17, 2008, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University. For more than forty years, Frank Barry has traveled all over the world photographing the demise of the steam locomotive. This exhibition consists of 26 11x14 photographs taken in North America--US, Canada, and Mexico--between 1955 and 1970. Some have been published, most recently in the Classic Trains Winter 2005 and Spring 2007 and some have never before been printed.

Steam Power: Railroad Photographs by O. Winston Link

Through August 4, 2008, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, 700 North Twelfth Street, Wausau, Wisconsin. "Steam Power" presents sixty images from the more than 2,400 Link (1914-2001) took from 1955-1960 of the final years of steam railroading on the Norfolk & Western Railway. His photographs are considered classics--records of this vanished locomotion type and of life in Appalachia during this period. "Steam Power" is on loan from the O. Winston Link Museum, Roanoke, Virginia. Link's best-known photographs were made at night using custom-built flash equipment. Yet he took great pleasure in recording at all hours of the day the people and towns whose lives the steam railroads shaped as they churned across the landscape. In this respect, Link preserved a vanishing way of life. During World War II, Link, educated as a civil engineer, worked in a secret laboratory adjacent to the Long Island Rail Road tracks. Despite a strict wartime prohibition, he began to photograph the trains and to dream about taking nighttime shots where he could control the light. The project brought together Link's knowledge of engineering, photography, and human nature. A subtle irony underlies Link's images in that he chose photography, a medium that came of age during the prime of steam trains, to document the waning days of this historic transportation mode.

Award-Winning Photographs at California State Railroad Museum

"Fascination with Railroad Machines" at California State Railroad Museum features prize-winning photographs from the center's 2007 awards program. The theme included machines in the environment, machines at work, railroaders working with machines, or anything as simple as a tie or switch stand or as complex a high horse-power locomotive. The 2008 photographs will go on display in August.

"Louisiana Link" Present Rarely Seen Prints at Link Museum

May 10-October 1, 2008, O. Winston Link Museum, Roanoke, Virginia. For the first time since the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, O. Winston Link's oldest exhibition of photographs documenting life in Louisiana will be on view for the public. In more than 50 images, "Louisiana Link" captures life and industry in 1937, include the daily activities of an LSU student, the Catholic blessing of the shrimp boats, oil prospecting, alligator hunting, rice harvesting, cotton marketing, bee insemination, and parties of then Governor Leche. The collection is on loan from Louisiana Link, LLC, an organization created by Link's only son, Conway, to gather and exhibit these earliest works by Link. Acquired directly from the photographer by his son, the images showcase Link's raw talent even in his early 20s and without formal training in photography.

"We are excited to have the opportunity to share with our visitors a deeper look into Link's working method and his early career work. In a great departure from our permanent galleries, this exhibition is an exploration of a culture and a man." said Kim Parker, director of the Link Museum.

Art in the Age of Steam: Europe, America and the Railway, 1830-1960

September 13, 2008-January 18, 2009, Bloch Building, Galleries L13 and L14, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. "Art in the Age of Steam" will show how artists responded to the railroad from its beginnings in the 1830s to the end of the Steam Age in 1960. It includes artists from both Europe and America including Claude Monet, Charles Sheeler, and Thomas Hart Benton. Paintings, lithographs and photography will show how the railroad changed the way we live, with consequences that are still with us today.

Tracks: The Railroad in Photographs from the George Eastman House

October 11, 2008-January 25, 2009, Gerorge Eastman House, Rochester, New York. A survey of railroad images from around the world, covering more than 160 years of photographic history including works by Lewis W. Hine, Aaron Siskind, William Henry Jackson, and Alvin Langdon Coburn.

Where Steam Moved Mountains

Opening July 18, 2008, California State Railroad Museum. The Nevada Northern Railway in eastern Nevada is the subject of this exhibition, highlighting the industrial heritage photography of Gordon Osmundson. A Bay Area artist who has been photographing the Nevada Northern in East Ely, Nevada, since 1988, Osmundson's new book of the same title (Where Steam Moved Mountains) is about to be released by Stanford University Press. The railroad itself celebrated the centennial of its arrival in Ely in 2007. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne has designated the Nevada Northern Railway's East Ely yard complex, locomotives, and rolling stock in Ely, Nevada, as a National Historic Landmark.

Aurelius O. Carpenter: Photographer of the Mendocino Frontier

September 21, 2008, through January 25, 2009, California State Railroad Museum. The first comprehensive exhibition on the work of Aurelius Ormando Carpenter (1836-1919), one of the earliest, talented photographers to set up shop in Mendocino County. His large panoramic views chronicle the coastal logging, tanbark, and shipping industries, as well as the inland region's natural attractions and agricultural products. He also produced an important body of photographs on Pomo Indian individuals and communities.

O. Winston Link Museum

A permanent collection of Link's photographs is in the renovated Norfolk & Western passenger station in downtown Roanoke, Virginia. The 15,000 square-foot museum bearing his name includes 190 signed prints, 85 estate prints, and all 2,400 of Link's negatives. Museum is at 101 Shenandoah Aveue. Hours 10 a.m. to 5 p.m, Monday-Saturday, Noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.

Toys that Move

Through September 2007. New York Transit Museum, Brooklyn Heights. As far back as history can trace, children all over the world have played with toys. Toys often portray the world in miniature, and toys that move have always held a particular fascination, reflecting real-life ways to travel. The exhibition, "Toot Toot, Beep Beep: Toys That Move," presents more than seventy transportation themed toys representing a century of technology and innovation in toy-making.

A Day on the Abingdon Branch: The Photography of O. Winston Link, 1955 -1957

Abingdon Train Station, home of the Historical Society of Washington County, Virginia, 306 Depot Square, Abingdon, Virginia. Images never before exhibited as well as a selection of favorites such as "Old Maud Bows to the Virginia Creeper" are included. More than three dozen black and white images comprise the William King Regional Arts Center's permanent collection of Link photographs. About one-half of the collection will be on view on a rotating basis. Hours are 10-4 Monday through Friday, and 10-2 the first and third Saturday of each month. Admission is free.

Winterail

Saturday, March 14, 2009, celebrating its 31st year. Program includes a presentation by Jim Shaughnessy. Stockton, California. Tickets: Vic Neves, P.O. Box 1627, San Leandro, CA 94577

Summerail at C.U.T.

Saturday August 9, 2008. Cincinnati Union Terminal, 1301 Western Avenue, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Presenters are John Benner (Los Alamos, NM), ATSF/BNSF Under Desert Skies; Willie Davis (Milford, OH), Come Along and Ride This Train; Ron Flanary (Big Stone Gap, VA), Forever Reliable; Tom Figura (Indianapolis, IN), Glacier Country; Chris Guss (Lake Villa, IL), Let it Snow! Winter 2007-2008 in the Midwest; George Hamlin (Fairfax, VA), Georgia In My Viewfinder During the 1980s; Mike Harting (Granger, IN), Canadian Pacific - More Than A Job - A Vacation Destination; Ryan (Kris) Krengel (Pendelton, IN), Krengel's Canadian View; Dominic Morrone (Chicago, IL), Trains, Snow and Chicago; Dale Sanders (Ferndale, WA), BC Rail Northern Light; Tom Seiler (Cleveland, OH), Ohio Railroading; and Chris Starnes (Gate City, VA), Homeward Bound. Information and tickets, Bill Haines, 305 Lamar Court, Vandalia, Ohio 45377, 937-898-8220, bhaines@erinet.com.

Highlights