Hello

Genre: Women, Landscape, Figure, Village Life

Dimensions

Image Dimensions: 16.1 x 12.1 cm February
Support Dimensions: 23.3 x 15.2 cm

Copyrighted in 1889 by John Dumont, the following editorial comment for Hello appears in the February, 1890 issue:

Our Illustration.
WE arc so fortunate this month as to be able to present a photogravure of one of Mr. Dumont’s latest productions, rightly named “Hello.” We think that our readers will agree that Mr. Dumont has caught the spirit of the subject and that he has reproduced it well on the sensitive film. Genre photography has its difficulties but it is a field well worth cultivating, and one which the amateur will find full of pleasure and profit. Mr. Dumont’s ” Hello” will prove suggestive and instructive. (p. 39)

Said to be the first promoter of electric light photography in Boston, (1880’s) the gravure plate presented here is a rare example produced by Frank Emil Barentzen and his Malden, Massachusetts based atelier Barentzen Photogravure Co.  Barentzen was an earlier practioner of gravure printing in America, and he worked for the important Boston publisher  Estes & Lauriat while simultaneously running his own shop. The following biographical outlined appeared in the 1899 volume ‪Malden Past and Present‬:

BARENTZEN, FRANK EMIL, was born at Cynthiana, Harrison County, Ky., October 21st, 1856. When an infant he was taken by his parents, Christian F. Barentzen and Harriet Barentzen, nee Watlington, to Santa Cruze, D. W. I., where he received public and private tuition. At the age of fourteen he entered the drug business and at eighteen went into photography. Traveled extensively through South America, and while at the Island of St. Pierre, Martinique, F. W. I., was appointed Vice Consul of the United States in February, 1882, during President Arthur’s administration. He resigned that position at the end of President Cleveland’s first year, during which time he received from the President of Venezuela the highest decoration given to any civilian and a diploma of honor from the French Government for his photographic skill. He came to Boston and afterwards entered the employ of Estes & Lauriat and made photogravures, a new process. Four years afterwards he established himself in Malden and still continued with Estes & Lauriat. Mr. Barentzen was the first promoter of electric light photography in Boston. He is married and has three children. He is a member of the Supreme Council of France, a 33d Mason, and also an Odd Fellow. (1.)

1. BARENTZEN, FRANK EMIL: from: ‪Malden Past and Present‬: ‪Issued on the Occasion of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of Malden, Mass., May, 1899 : Incorporated as a Town in 1649‬: Malden Mirror, Malden, MA: 1899: p. 86. The firm was located at  21 Garnet St. in Malden.