Barnard's was among the longest but now least-known careers in early American photography. He began to practice the daguerreotype in Oswego, New York, in 1846, then moved to Syracuse. In 1853 he served as secretary of the New York State Daguerrean Association, and in 1857 perfected a method of using photography to make woodcuts, for which he was awarded a prize at the American Institute. In February 1861, he joined Mathew Brady's Washington, D.C., gallery where he helped photograph Lincoln's inauguration and made many of the earliest carte de visite photographs of the nation's political leaders and military personnel. When General Sherman left Nashville in 1864, Barnard went along as official photographer for the military Division of Mississippi, and his large photographs made on this campaign are among the rarest and most famous of the Civil War period. In the 1870s he worked in Chicago and in South Carolina, then returned to New York State where he helped George Eastman get started in business. Barnard and Eastman were elected members of the Rochester photographic association on the same evening in 1884. He died in Onondaga, New York, on February 4, 1902.
Artist Bibliography
1866
Barnard, George N. Photograhic Views of Sherman's Campaign: Embracing Scenes... New York: Wynkoop and Hallenbeck, 1866.
1866
Gardner, Alexander. Gardner's Photographic Sketch-Book of the War. Washington, D.C.: Philip & Solomon's, 1866.
1990
Davis, Keith F. George N. Barnard: Photographer of Sherman's Campaign. Kansas City, Missouri, 1990.