After his death, Thomas Easterlys wife sold most of his personal collection to John Scholton, another noted St. Louis photographer. The Scholton family eventually donated the plates to the Missouri Historical Society where they remained for nearly a century before being rediscovered during the 1980s by art scholars studying pre-American Civil War photography. Although his reputation was limited to the Midwest during his lifetime, Easterly is considered to have been one of the foremost experts in the field of daguerreotype photography in the United States during the mid-to-late 19th century. By the 1860s most photographers had abandoned the daguerreotype process for the albumen and collodion processes. Easterly felt that the daguerreotype was an art form and refused to adopt new techniques, urging the public to save your old daguerreotypes for you will never see their like again. His studio suffered from declining patronage, and he himself developed poor health, probably due to the mercury poisoning often associated with the daguerreotype process. Despite the declining interest for pictures on silver, he was able to maintain his gallery until it burned in a fire in 1865. He was forced to move to a smaller location and continued working in near obscurity until his death in St. Louis on March 12, 1882. Information here from Photography News. The most complete appreciation of Easterlys life and work, with 233 illustrations is Dolores Kilgos book “Likeness and Landscape: Thomas M. Easterly and the Art of the Daguerreotype” published by the Missouri Historical Society Press in 1994. This photo below was posted on this forum a few months ago, but worth another hit. Date of this is 1851 and unattributed photographer according to Mo Historical Society.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 19:24:06 +0000
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