Mono Lake, Volcano, 13,000 Feet

Timothy O’Sullivan is acclaimed for landscape photographs of the American West that are bleak and subtle, seemingly more in step with a modernist aesthetic than with the period in which they were made. After establishing his reputation documenting the Civil War under Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner, O’Sullivan served as official photographer for the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, under geologist Clarence King. Covering a 200-mile swath of land along the path of the coming transcontinental railroad, from the California-Nevada border to Cheyenne, Wyoming, the survey had scientific objectives but was also followed closely by the interests behind the railroad and those who sought to profit from the region’s mineral resources. The pictures O’Sullivan produced on the King’s survey contrast with the majestic western landscapes made by his contemporaries; he often emphasized the desolate emptiness of expanses of land, as in this image of the shallow, saline Mono Lake.