PASSAGE TO ELDORADO:
THE EARLIEST KNOWN PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE AMERICAN DESERT WEST Taken BY RUDOLPH D’HEUREUSE IN 1863
A Talk with Author Jeff Lapides
Please join the Los Angeles City Historical Society for a special webinar with Jeff Lapides, author of The Mojave Road in 1863: The Pioneering Photographs of Rudolph d’Heureuse.
Lapides will discuss Rudolph d’Heureuse, a photographer of the early American west who captured some of the earliest known photographs of the region. A German immigrant, d’Heureuse was a surveyor, cartographer, civil engineer, mining engineer, oenologist, and inventor who set out on a momentous journey in 1863.
d’Heureuse photographed the Mojave Road in the Desert West from the shores of the Pacific Ocean to the banks of the Colorado River and the mines of Eldorado Canyon in today’s Nevada. His subjects included San Bernardino, Cajon Pass, and Los Angeles’s seaport, New San Pedro (Wilmington). He did it in 1863, many years before anyone else took the next photo of this desert and its travelers, crossroads, forts, soldiers, and watering holes.
As the very first photographic record of the Mojave Road and its destinations, it calls for a reappraisal of its importance as a convergence of mid-nineteenth century technology, art and commerce. Ansel Adams thought highly enough of Rudolph d’Heureuse’s work to include five prints of these images in a 1942 show he curated at the Museum of Modern Art in New York—an exhibit that included the pictures of Brady, O’Sullivan, Curtis, Jackson, Watkins, and other luminaries of photography of the Civil War and the American West.
The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session.
About the Author
Jeff Lapides is a Southern California jewelry photographer and book designer residing in Sierra Madre. His previous book designs include Michele Zack’s Southern California Story: Seeking the Better Life in Sierra Madre, Elizabeth Pomeroy’s San Marino: A Centennial History, and John Robinson’s magnum opus, Gateways to Southern California. It was his involvement with Robinson’s work that introduced him to a few of the photographs that are the cornerstones of today’s talk and its accompanying coffee table book, The Mojave Road in 1863: The Pioneering Photographs of Rudolph d’Heureuse.
LOCATION
Webinar via Zoom
REGISTRATION
This is a free event but registration is required.
This is a free webinar, but we welcome donations if you would like to support our programs. If you are not already a LACHS member, please consider joining LACHS today. Donate and/or become a member online. Your support is very much appreciated!
If you have questions about the event, please email us at lacityhistoryevents@gmail.com.
