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Rare Baseball Photos, including Babe Ruth, Gifted to the Met
April 5, 2022, 6:26.33 pm ET

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Babe Ruth, The Met Photo
Charles M. Conlon (American, 1868-1945) Babe Ruth, ca. 1922, Gelatin silver print, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Paul Reiferson and Julie Spivack, MD, 2020

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today the gift and promised gift from collectors Paul Reiferson and Julie Spivack of an outstanding collection of 480 rare, vintage gelatin silver prints by Charles M. Conlon (American, 1868-1945) of American baseball players from 1904 to 1942. During that period the sport rose to national prominence.

Ty Cobb, The Met Photo
Charles M. Conlon (American, 1868-1945) Ty Cobb, 1913, Gelatin silver print, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Paul Reiferson and Julie Spivack, MD, 2020

Conlon was a master photographer known for his distinctive and poetic documentation of America's favorite pastime. Highlights of the collection include portraits of Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, Honus Wagner, Pee Wee Reese, and Ty Cobb, among many other greats from the early years of baseball.

Christy Mathewson, The Met Photo

Charles M. Conlon (American, 1868-1945), Christy Mathewson, 1904, Gelatin silver print, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Paul Reiferson and Julie Spivack, MD, 2020

"Charles Conlon captured an important chapter in American sports history, and it's especially thrilling to announce this generous gift just as the 2022 baseball season is about to start up," said Max Hollein, of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "These photographs are an import addition to The Met's collection, and a wonderful complement to the Museum’s renowned Jefferson R. Burdick collection of printed baseball cards. We are exceptionally grateful to Paul Reiferson and Julie Spivack."

Gonus Wagner, The Met Photo
Charles M. Conlon (American, 1868-1945) Honus Wagner, 1912, Gelatin silver print, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Paul Reiferson and Julie Spivack, MD, 2020

Among the most surprising pictures in the collection are close-up studies that reveal in detail how individual pitchers held the ball for fastballs, curves, spitballs, and sliders, and how power batters gripped their bats during different situations at the plate. We look forward to planning for the future exhibition of these beguiling photographs not yet fully integrated into the history of American photography."

Modecai Brown, The Met Photo
Charles M. Conlon (American, 1868-1945) Mordecai Brown, Change-Up Grip, 1914, Gelatin silver print, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Paul Reiferson and Julie Spivack, MD, 2020

Charles Conlon was an upstate New York newspaper proofreader and amateur landscape photographer who began making snapshot studies of athletes at baseball games in 1904. When he ended his career in 1942, he was widely celebrated for his candid but lyrical photographs that appeared as halftone reproductions in the annual Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide and the monthly Baseball Magazine, and were also reproduced widely on baseball trade cards

Many of the photographs appear in the two monographs on the artist: Constance McCabe, Baseball’s Golden Age: The Photographs of Charles M. Conlon (1993) and Constance and Neal McCabe, The Big Show: Charles M. Conlon’s Golden Age Baseball Photographs (2011).


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