Victor Valley Daily Press
APPLE VALLEY — Author and photographer Jeff Lapides will be the Mohahve Historical Society’s first guest speaker of 2019 when the group meets this week, according to President Jim Mustra.
Lapides will discuss “The Mojave Road in 1863: The Pioneering Photographs of Rudolph D’Heureuse,” a book he edited that includes a foreword by Dennis Casebier, author of the popular “Mojave Road Guide.”
Lapides’ book is, in part, a collection of all the glass plate negative images taken by the German-born d’Heureuse during his travels on the Mojave Road from the Port of Los Angeles to the Colorado River.
In the book, the 155-year-old images are accompanied by newspaper accounts, and reveal an early and wild Mojave Desert, according to the Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Association website. They were produced only 25 years after the invention of photography.
Ansel Adams included some of D’Huereuse’s work in a 1942 exhibit of frontier photographers at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, according to a California Desert Art report. There, D’Heureuse’s photos were seen alongside those of Timothy O’Sullivan, Carleton Watkins, William Henry Jackson and Civil War chronicler Mathew Brady, among others.
The Sierra Madre-based Lapides “stumbled on” D’Heureuse’s photos while completing a separate project, according to the Mohahve Muse, the society’s newsletter. He will share the story behind his find during the meeting, as well.
The Mohahve Historical Society meets at Redeemer Church, located at 22434 Nisqually Road in Apple Valley. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, with Lapides’ talk to follow. Refreshments will be available.
Visit www.Mohahve.org for more information.
