Carte de Visite: History of Photography
McNamara Hallway Gallery, Reno
View Carte de Visite: History of Photography in McNamara Hallway Gallery from April 24 – May 20, 2026.
The carte de visite was a popular 19th-century photographic format that included portraits of sitters, served as visiting and business cards as well as the advertisement for photo studios. They were traded among friends, collected in albums, displayed on walls and shelves in homes, included in book's frontispieces, and exhibited on photo studios' windows displays. Each carte de visite was a complex medium of self-promotion and popularization of the photographic portrait and may be regarded as an early form of social media.
University of Nevada, Reno students in Dr. Guerrero Hernandez' History of Photography course have produced a contemporary re-appropriation of the cartes de visite based on their personal and social interests, worries, queries, or commitments, dealing with issues such as gender, race, class, family, memory and death. The students have adopted unorthodox materials, forms, sizes, and techniques, from metal, plastic, wood and paper to embroidery, assemblage and collage. Each new carte de visite has two 'sides'. One is the persona created and the other is the ''studio's'' label.