William Henry Jackson

Why this artist matters now

William Henry Jackson was an American photographer and painter known for his large-format landscape documentation of the American West during the second half of the nineteenth century. Working primarily with wet-collodion and gelatin dry-plate processes, Jackson produced thousands of photographs that established the visual vocabulary of western exploration and geology. His work with the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories shaped both scientific and popular understanding of landscapes from the Rocky Mountains to the Grand Canyon. Jackson lived to 99, continuing to paint and write well into the twentieth century.

Source: Moma Bulk 2026 05 04 · Trust score: 92% · Updated 25d ago