O'Sullivan, Timothy H.

O'Sullivan, Timothy H., c.1840–1882, American pioneer photographer, b. New York City. O'Sullivan worked in Matthew Brady's first New York gallery and on the battlefronts of the Civil War. He made photographs for the 40th-parallel surveys (1867–69) and the first underground mine pictures, at the Comstock Lode. Most of his views made for the Wheeler Colorado River expedition were lost fighting the rapids. In 1873, O'Sullivan photographed the ecology and the civilizations of the Arizona and New Mexico deserts. He was appointed chief photographer to the treasury department in 1880.

Bibliography

See biography by J. D. Horan (1966).

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O'Sullivan, Timothy H.

(born c. 1840, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Jan. 14, 1882, Staten Island, N.Y.) U.S. photographer. He learned photography in Mathew B. Brady's studio in New York City, and during the American Civil War he photographed on many fronts as one of Brady's team. Perhaps his best-known picture is Harvest of Death (1863), showing Confederate dead at Gettysburg. O'Sullivan left Brady's employ over the issue of receiving proper credit for his work. After the war O'Sullivan often portrayed vast landscapes. He took part in surveys in Panama as well as in the western and southwestern U.S. and was appointed chief photographer for the Treasury Department in 1880.

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O'Sullivan, Timothy H. (c. 1840–82) photographer; born in New York City. A protégé of Mathew Brady, he led photographers covering Gettysburg and Richmond during the Civil War. From 1862 to 1865 he photographed the Army of the Potomac with Alexander Gardner. An expedition photographer (1867–74), he took pictures for various geological surveys with a magnesium torch deep in the Comstock mines, in the rain forests of Panama, and along the Chelley Canyon in Arizona.