Among the Wonders of the Dells: Photography, Place, Tourism

Exhibition Website

Jun 1 2019 - Sep 8 2019

Among the Wonders of the Dells explores the emergence and transformation of the Wisconsin Dells into what is today the single-most important tourist destination in Wisconsin. The exhibition and its 192-page catalog will include photographs by LeRoy Gates, the first photographer of the Dells, H.H. Bennett, the great nineteenth-century photographer touted as “the man who made the Wisconsin Dells famous,” Oliver Reese and John Trumble, who documented the Dells’ postwar tourist boom in the twentieth century, and three contemporary Wisconsin photographers commissioned by MOWA to spend a year photographing the Dells from their unique perspectives. The work of Tom Jones, Associate Professor of Photography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and member of the Ho-Chunk nation, flips the script of Native Americans being represented through the outsider’s lens and investigates contemporary representations of native culture in the Dells. Working out of H.H. Bennett’s historic studio, Kevin Miyazaki, whose photographs often appear in the New York Times, has been taking portraits of tourists, townsfolk, and overseas students working in the Dells on J-1 visas. Mark Brautigam’s work presents lush landscape views of the natural and artificial aspects of the Dells.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.          

  • Photography
  • American
  • Contemporary
  • LeRoy Gates
  • H.H. Bennett
  • Oliver Reese
  • John Trumble
  • Tom Jones
  • Kevin Miyazaki
  • Mark Brautigam

Exhibition Venues & Dates