Macao
1963 · Collotype, pl. XXIII from the album "Illustrations of China and its People, Volume I" (1873)
Image: 20.2 × 30 cm (8 × 11 13/16 in.); Album page: 34.7 × 47.1 cm (13 11/16 × 18 9/16 in.)
Art Institute of Chicago
WATTS INDEXThe canonical database of visual culture
John Thomson
Artist
Photography
Representation
None documented
2
Institutional Exhibitions
454
Works in Collection
731
Assets Indexed
0
Authority-backed Facts
0
Publications Referenced
90%
Profile Completeness
Cultural Positioning
Movements
- • Photography
Related Artists
No edges recorded
Influence Graph
No influence edges encoded yet.
Selected Institutional Exhibitions
View all exhibitions →No image
Photography for Collectors
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1976
No image
The Exact Instant
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1949
About
Why this artist matters now
John Thomson was a British photographer and explorer active in the mid to late nineteenth century, known for documentary photography of East Asia and the Near East. Working primarily in albumen and carbon print processes, he produced extensive photographic surveys of China, Cambodia, and Egypt that combined ethnographic observation with landscape documentation. His work represents a significant archive of late-colonial visual culture and demonstrates the technical refinement possible within large-format field photography of the period.
Source: Moma Bulk 2026 05 04 · Trust score: 92% · Updated 26d ago
Graph relationships
Taste overlap and adjacency
Movement
Photography
Medium
—
Related Artists
11 in graph
Institutional
Museum Collections
Canonical record
Artworks (454)
View all 454 artworks →
Record
Images
12 assets
View all 12 media items →
Related artists
Adjacent in the graph
Record
Movements and affiliations
Institutional
Representation & Collections
In collection
Rijksmuseum
In collection
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
In collection
Cleveland Museum of Art
In collection
Art Institute of Chicago
In collection
Museum of Modern Art
New York, US
In collection
National Gallery of Art
Record