Cabinet Cards, "True to Nature"

Episode No. 458 features curators John Rohrbach and Mary Morton.

Rohrbach is the curator of "Acting Out: Cabinet Cards and Modern Photography," which opens on Tuesday, August 18 at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth. The exhibition examines how cabinet cards became the primary format for photographic portraiture between roughly the end of the Civil War and 1900. It shows how photography studios and their customers used photography as a means of personal and individual expression, as well as how cabinet cards reflected celebrity culture. It will be on view through November 1. The exhibition catalogue was published by the Amon Carter in association with University of California Press. It is available from Amazon and through Indiebound for $45.

On the second segment, Mary Morton discusses “True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe, 1780–1870,” which is on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington through November 29.