John Beasley Greene

John Beasley Greene (1832 – November 1856) was a French-born American Egyptologist and one of the earliest archaeological documentary photographers. He died at the age of 24. Because of his early demise, his pioneering work was quickly forgotten. The first important study of Greene was published in 1981.

After his father's death in 1850, Greene was able to finance his first trip to Egypt in 1854.

He was a founding member of the Société française de photographie, founded on 15 November 1854. That same year, he published photographs from his expedition under the title, Le Nil : monuments, paysages, explorations photographiques.

In Algeria, on his second trip in late 1855 and early 1856, he photographed excavation campaigns of the Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania in Algeria, led by Louis-Adrien Berbrugger.

He died in Cairo, possibly of tuberculosis, at the age of 24.

Publications Le Nil : monuments, paysages, explorations photographiques, Lille, Imprimerie photographique de Blanquart-Évrard, 1854. Fouilles Executées à Thèbes dans l'année 1855 Photographes en Algérie au XIXe siècle. Paris

Collections Bibliothèque de l'institut Cabinet des estampes de la BNF Smithsonian American Art Museum Musée de l'Élysée, Lausanne George Eastman House San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Art Institute of Chicago