Kenyon, Catcher, St. Louis Whites, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1887 - 1890

Editor: So, this albumen print, "Kenyon, Catcher, St. Louis Whites," dating back to the late 1880s by Goodwin & Company… it's a baseball card, essentially, promoting Old Judge Cigarettes. I find its sepia tone and formal portrait style so charmingly at odds with our modern, slick sports images. What do you see in this piece beyond the obvious Americana? Curator: Beyond the baseball, beyond even the cigarettes, I see a captured moment on the cusp of… well, everything. Photography was still relatively young, you know, fumbling towards something real. Kenyon here is more than a catcher; he’s an archetype frozen in sepia, looking almost quizzically towards the future of image culture that he’s unwittingly participating in. Doesn’t he almost seem to be asking: “Is this it? Is *this* how we become immortal?” It’s touching, in a slightly absurd way, don’t you think? Editor: That’s a really lovely thought – him peering into the future! I hadn’t considered that at all. I was focused on the baseball aspect, its role in advertising... Curator: The advertising is a layer, definitely. But the genius, if there is one, lies in the double-capture – both the player and the potential consumer, both caught in the amber of photographic possibility. Were these cards displayed, traded, cherished? Likely all three. Kenyon the catcher then becomes Kenyon the collectible, a piece of a burgeoning mythology. A pocket-sized god. What will become of them? It seems there's also a certain fragility here too? Editor: Right, there’s something so fragile about the photograph, even as it tries to immortalize. It’s faded, imperfect, almost ghostly. Seeing it this way does make me rethink what I consider ‘valuable’ or even ‘real’. Curator: Exactly. In this image, we witness the humble beginnings of both advertising *and* celebrity. Now it’s all ubiquitous; back then it had a quiet innocence. This little card reminds us how extraordinary the ordinary once was.