National Portrait Gallery Presents “‘Warranted to Give Satisfaction’: Daguerreotypes by Jeremiah Gurney”

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery will display more than one dozen daguerreotype portraits by groundbreaking American photographer Jeremiah Gurney. Over the course of nearly two decades in the mid-19th century, Gurney established himself not only as a masterful technician but also as an uncompromising artist whose prizewinning work was often unmatched in its quality. Award medals and works on paper, including advertisements for Gurney’s successful New York City studio, further contextualize his practice and significance as an innovator in the history of American photography. The exhibition is curated by senior curator of photographs Ann Shumard and can be viewed on the museum’s first floor, June 25 – February 6, 2022.

A jeweler by trade, Jeremiah Gurney abandoned that career in 1840 to take up daguerreotypy, then the first practical method of photography, following the technique’s introduction in 1839. Armed at the time with a rudimentary camera, Gurney studied the new technique under the tutelage of American inventor Samuel Morse before opening his own studio in New York City. He quickly earned a reputation for himself as a distinguished artist able to coax rich tone and great detail from his camera. Critics hailed Gurney’s work as “nearer to absolute perfection” than that of his contemporaries. Like his competitors, such as future Civil War photographer Mathew Brady, Gurney recorded the likenesses of a number of public figures. However, he more often trained his lens on the families and tastemakers inhabiting the upper echelons of New York society, those he called “distinguished persons of the age,” as well as members of the rising middle class. Although the majority of the sitters represented in the Portrait Gallery’s exhibition are unidentified, “Warranted to Give Satisfaction” includes several portraits of historical figures, including Moses Yale Beach, founder of the Associated Press; Augusta and Mary Jay, the great-granddaughters of Chief Justice of the United States John Jay; and Alfred R. Waud, a popular artist and illustrator.

“Jeremiah Gurney was, in every respect, a groundbreaking daguerreotypist—which places him at the epicenter of the early history of photography in the United States,” said Shumard. “This was a period of technical innovation and keen competition among daguerreotypists vying for the public’s patronage. Gurney distinguished himself by creating delicately hand-colored portraits that exhibited his superb understanding of the all the elements—lighting, pose, composition, and even the artist’s rapport with his sitters—that combine to produce beautiful and compelling portraits. He was particularly adept at fashioning sensitive portraits of children and family groups.”

“‘Warranted to Give Satisfaction’: Daguerreotypes by Jeremiah Gurney” features a selection of daguerreotypes from the National Portrait Gallery and four private collections, as well as several works on paper. Among the latter is a clever advertising handbill issued by Gurney that mimics a $100 banknote and pledges “pictures taken at this establishment warranted to give satisfaction.” Gurney won major national and international awards for his work and continued to make daguerreotypes until the close of the 1850s, when his practice transitioned fully to paper print photography.