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[The Cliff House from the Beach]

Creator

American Photographer · 1829–1916

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At twenty, Carleton Watkins headed out to California to make his fortune. After working as a daguerreotype operator in San Jose, he established his own practice and soon made his first visit to the Yosemite Valley. There he made thirty mammoth plate and one hundred stereograph views that were among the first photographs of Yosemite seen in the East. Partly on the strength of Watkins's photographs,

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Date: 1868–1870
Medium: Albumen silver print
Culture: American
Department: Photographs
Institution: Getty Museum

Taken at extreme low tide when the transition from land to sea appears seamless, this photograph conveys the stillness encountered at a scarcely populated tourist destination. The horse and carriage on the sand almost disappear against the shadowy background of a rock face, while spectators on the Cliff House balcony observe from above. Watkins repeatedly photographed the Cliff House at Ocean Beach on the northwest edge of San Francisco's peninsula. This structure, the first of San Francisco's four Cliff Houses, burned down on Christmas Day in 1894. Since then, three additional buildings, all named the Cliff House, have stood on this site overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

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