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In 1853 Richard Hovendon Kern was appointed as topographer and artist for a government-sponsored reconnaissance led by Captain John Williams Gunnison. Kern sketched landscape panoramas as the group made its way from St. Louis toward San Francisco. When the expedition reached Sevier Lake, Utah, however, it was attacked by a band of Indians. Seven men, including Kern and Gunnison, were killed, and Kern’s drawings were stolen. The sketches were soon recovered and eventually carried to Washington, D.C.
Robert Shlaer, an accomplished daguerreotypist, came across Kern’s sketches many years later at the Newberry Library in Chicago. He was inspired to locate the views depicted in the drawings and to photograph them, as nearly as was possible, from the same spot where Kern had stood when he sketched them.
Richard Kern’s Far West Sketches juxtaposes Kern’s drawings with Shlaer’s photographs, presenting hundreds of illustrations in geographic sequence from east to west, as well as a detailed narrative of the expedition.
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“The correct attribution, identification, sequencing, and site location of the original sketches are significant accomplishments in themselves, and Shlaer’s photographs are works of fine—even phenomenal—documentary art.”
—Ben W. Huseman, cartographic archivist, University of Texas Arlington Special Collections
“Shlaer’s work provides historians access to a body of sketches previously unknown. It represents a significant contribution to the history of exploration in the West and highlights one of the expeditions that has not received
much attention.”
—Ephriam D. Dickson III, deputy chief, Field Museums Branch, U.S. Army Center of Military History
About the Author
Robert Shlaer worked as a professional daguerreotypist for twenty years. His book Sights Once Seen: Daguerreotyping Frémont’s Last Expedition through the Rockies became a traveling exhibition of the same name and received the Ralph Emerson Twitchell Award from the Historical Society of New Mexico.
