A milestone has been reached, of sorts, with a current exhibition of photographs now on display in a Massachusetts custom frame store and gallery. Camera Work Portraits: Objects and Souls, featuring mostly photogravure plates from this revolutionary arts magazine founded by Alfred Stieglitz, are now at Hudson Art and Framing through September 30. I’m proud of this first first public exhibit featuring work from the PhotoSeed Archive, and hope to feature vintage work in other future venues.

Many a museum show has featured plates from Camera Work, the mouthpiece and journal of the American Photo-Secession published between 1903-17. In fact, should you find yourself at the Museum of Modern Art right now, a visit to the ongoing A Little Gallery of the Photo-Secession exhibit in gallery #504 includes original photographs by American Photo-Secession members and full issues of Camera Work opened within a large display case.

With a nod to photographs showing interior views of The Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession published in Camera Work XIV, (1906) the light-filled gallery space of Brian Dean’s Hudson Art and Framing already replicates the minimalist look of Edward Steichen’s spaces featured in the inaugural New York show at 291 Fifth Ave., which ran November 24, 1905 – January 5, 1906. To top it off, Brian custom built some lovely frames featuring black painted wood moulding in an understated rustic look to compliment cream colored mats I supplied.

Again: not the typical exhibit one encounters in an American custom framing store/gallery. The plates on display—mostly gravures— are the unsung heroes of the photographic collecting field in that they were printed from copper plates made from the original negative, and therefore considered original prints in the marketplace. Museum of Modern Art conservator Lee Ann Daffner elucidates further: “… issues of Camera Work were also impeccably produced: Stieglitz and the Photo-Secessionists aimed to disseminate reproductions that were faithful to the original photographs. So much attention was lavished on choosing the best materials, achieving optimal printing, and the careful mounting. Stieglitz retouched any flaws, in every single print, himself. Truly, they are as precious as the original photographs on the wall.”

Photographic degrees of separation are something this site prides itself on. When Brian Dean told me Boston-based tintype photographer Bruce Wahl would also be setting up his darkroom on site during the recent Hudson show opening, the association of the Stieglitz journal plates on the walls inside and tintypes being made outside the gallery doors was an uncanny 21st Century development for modern day practitioners keeping the past alive.

Specifically, it was an itinerant tintype and commercial photographer by the name of George S. Irish (1847-1920) who had a profound influence on a nine-year child by the name of Alfred Stieglitz. From Richard Whelan’s 1995 book Alfred Stieglitz, A Biography: 

“In the summer of 1873, accompanied by several friends, he took his collection of lead horses to be photographed by Mr. Irish, the tintyper in Caldwell. Alfred carefully arranged his models on a cloth and, after the exposure was made, was granted permission to follow Mr. Irish into his darkroom. It was not the first time Alfred had entered such a sanctum, for the previous year he had been allowed into the darkroom when his mother had taken him and his brothers and sisters to be photographed by the fashionable Abraham Bogardus, in New York. “I was far less interested in the pictures than in going into darkrooms, recalled Stieglitz. “I wanted to know what went on in those mysterious places. … Alfred would simply drop in to chat with the friendly photographer and watch him work. He was fascinated by the skill with which Mr. Irish directed his portrait subjects, and he was opinionated about at least one of his friend’s practices, that of touching up the cheeks of his portraits with carmine. Mr. Irish said it made the pictures look “more natural, but Alfred disagreed. In a late version of the story, he claimed already to have an intuition that the integrity of the photographic image should be respected. More likely, he simply thought that the incongruously rouged cheeks looked silly.”  (pp. 40-41)

Turns out, even the bones are photographic. When I asked Brian about the history of his building, he showed me faded newspaper clippings and explained it was generally known in Hudson as Odd Fellows Hall. Located at 18 Main Street at the Hudson rotary, It was built by commercial photographer Russell Burnap Lewis (1835-1924) in 1894 after a major fire devastated the downtown area. Lewis, a shoemaker and Civil War veteran turned photographer, had moved to what became Hudson in 1864 and opened his studio in a wood building that did not survive the fire. Lewis was a very successful businessman. In addition to a thriving studio, in 1876, he had made a small fortune selling thousands of stereographs featuring 12 babies entitled “The Morning Glories” (1.) he had copyrighted in 1874 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.

The Lewis studio was located on the second floor of his new 1894 building, (2.) (perhaps he took advantage of the large windows on the third floor as a “skylight” studio, common to that era) his major tenant being druggist L.D. Carpenter on the first floor. (3.) A vintage postcard postmarked 1908 reveals the Lewis surname and year 1894 above the entrance near the roofline. Today, this three-story, curving brick structure is one of the finest buildings in a downtown of fine buildings, the curving front facade giving off ever so faint vibes of New York City’s later Flat Iron building.

With his own building acting as the historical template for ongoing commerce and a robust venue for over three decades as a gallery spurring on artistic debate, I’ll conclude this post with part of Brian Dean’s Camera Work exhibition essay:

“These photographers and artists took a modernist view of art and the world, always seeking, “to help the modern tendencies to come to the front, to show the public what was being done, and not what had been done; to make people look, not to the past, but to the future” (Paul Haviland, January 1909 Camera Work). 

The world would see great changes during this time period through industrialization, urban sprawl, technological progress and eventually devastating war. Modernism was the artist’s way of reacting to these changes, rejecting the ideas of classical and realistic art to focus on Surrealism, Impressionism, or Pictorialism. These portraits, even though created with a camera, do not focus on the act of representation through pure likeness. Instead they aim to , “reveal(s) a definite state of sensibility. To invent a portrait is to conse­crate the liberation of a living and thinking being to isolate, not man, but one man, to realize all the distinctive features of his physiognomy, discern and register them; it is in fact an act of freedom.” (Waldemar George).

In our current time we face our own great changes – the AI boom, data economy, and the digitization of every aspect of our lives. This show is a way of remembering that through these great changes we can react in our own way. We can create objects, art and ideas that help us move forward while discerning what is the true soul of what we seek. For just as these plates were created to be, “an object of great beauty and superb quality” we too can create our own objects of beauty and quality. 

1. See: Paula Richardson Fleming: R. B. Lewis’ Morning Glories, in Stereo World, January/February 2017, p. 4
2. Lewis Halprin and the Hudson Historical Society, Hudson: Postcard History Series, 2008, Arcadia Publishing.
3. The Wheeler pharmacy then occupied this first floor space now occupied by Hudson Art and Framing. It was initially rented out after the new building was completed in 1894 by druggist Lewis Dutch Carpenter. (1854-1906) Pharmacist Carlton B. Wheeler, (1879-1934) who worked for Carpenter beginning in 1897, earned his doctor of pharmacy degree from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and later purchased the business from the Carpenter family after Carpenter’s death in the Spring of 1906.

A little over seven years ago, this archive finally acquired the monumental European portfolio Nach der Natur, (After Nature) published in Berlin in early 1897.

Composed of 32 sumptuous hand-pulled photogravure plates, I learned it was considered a cornerstone to any important collection of artistic photography when first reading about it almost 25 years ago. And, as persistence can sometimes pay off, a Dresden antiquarian bookseller listed the folio, along with other titles, appearing in my inbox in March of 2017. The portfolio itself is the artistic historical record for Berlin’s 1896 Inter­national Exhibition of Amateur Photography (Internationalen Ausstellung für Amateur-Photographie) held in the Reichstag building, the German government’s legislative headquarters, which had newly opened two years prior in mid 1894.

Approximately 580 exhibitors took part from around the world, with one reviewer commenting that other than the scientific entries, in terms of mounted photographs: “there may have been several thousand of them”. The exhibition had the support of Victoria, Empress of Germany and Queen of Prussia, the first born child of Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha: a chip off the proverbial block per chance? It’s well known Albert had a passion for employing early photography to document the British Royal family.

Due to this work being an important influence on the perception of photography as art in the public discourse during the last years of the 19th century, I’ve dedicated some time in pulling contemporary reviews for the exhibition, and have further translated the entirety of the letterpress for the portfolio, along with acknowledgements, etc. from editor Franz Goerke and the main portfolio essay penned by Richard Stettiner. I will continue my thoughts at the conclusion of this post on the importance of the photogravure plates from this work and how it influenced Alfred Stieglitz in America, with the baton first taken up by Goerke- an important proponent of the photogravure process. Goerke had shown a series of mounted photogravures at the exhibition- logically continuing his favored reproduction process by assembling Nach der Natur as a remembrance of it. But first, some contemporary excerpts laying out differing perceptions of the 1896 Berlin exhibition by the German photographic press:

Observations: The German Photographic Press (translated)

Photographische Mitteilungen, Berlin: October, 1896: reviewer Paul Hanneke:

⎯  On September 3rd, the international exhibition for amateur photography opened in the new Reichstag building. The choice of location is certainly a very fortunate one, because as a sight in Berlin, it already exerts a certain attraction on the public. The rooms made available for the photography exhibition are on the first floor and are large enough to be able to arrange the numerous pictures etc. received in a clear order. Unfortunately, the lighting conditions are sometimes quite unfavorable, so that some beautiful pieces do not really come into their own. The exhibition itself is richly represented by all parts of the world, namely Austria, England, France and Belgium, which are countries that have participated heavily and are distinguished by their outstanding achievements, especially in artistic terms.  (1.)

Wiener Photographische Blätter, Vienna: November, 1896: reviewer Ludwig David:

⎯ Respectfully withholding commentary for work shown at the exhibition by his own club: “the Vienna School has taken its place with honor”, David gives overall thoughts and then offers criticism for individual works at the exhibition from their respective countries, England, France, Belgium, etc: “The exhibition was divided into several sections in order to keep the representations of artistic photography and those serving scientific purposes separate. The fact that the exhibition was housed in the stately, wide rooms of the new Reichstag building ensured that it was well attended, as many people were enticed to get to know the interior design and the beauties of this new building. The large number of visitors, around 26,000 people, can also be attributed to the keen interest shown in the exhibition by Berlin’s upper class.

⎯  All of the pictures that were not for scientific purposes, there may have been several thousand of them, were housed partly in the corridors, which receive their scant light from the courtyards of the building, and partly in a large domed structure that connects these corridors and has a skylight. In these rooms there was room for all the pictures that are understood under the somewhat cumbersome and tasteless name of “amateur photographs.” There was no separation of the pictures of an artistic nature from the majority of pictures that do not claim this designation.”

⎯  From America, David singles out William Boyd Post, Clarence Moore, C.R. Pancoast, Charles I. Berg, Emma Justine Farnsworth, A. Eidenmüller (St. Paul) and Alfred Stieglitz: …“a well-known master whose fame was not first established at this exhibition. Most of his pictures are no longer new either. “A wet day, with its drastic rainy mood is outstanding; “Scurrying home“, two old Dutch women walking through the countryside, is picturesque, a splendid picture printed in sepia.

⎯  It must be said of the exhibition itself that it has fully fulfilled its task of giving a picture of the current state of photography. The arrangers, who had to deal with an enormous amount of material, deserve credit for having handled this task in a skilful manner: among others, Dr. Neuhauss has done particularly well for the scientific department of photography, and Mr. Franz Goerke for the artistic department. The light in the exhibition room was not sufficient in all places, the pictures were often too close together and hung much too high. It would also have been advisable to separate the pictures with a painterly effect from the works that were not of the same quality and to have the admission and award jury for this section comprise only recognized artists.” (2.)

Photographische Correspondenz, Vienna & Leipzig: October, 1896: Unknown reviewer(s):

⎯  Would you like a picture of the international exhibition for amateur photography in Berlin? If you call a horse a crocodile, you have used a nomenclature that is just as correct as calling this exhibition an amateur exhibition, assuming that you assume that the amateur does photography for pleasure.

It would actually be time to divide amateur photographers into two classes: amateurs who turn to the subject out of scientific interest and pursue serious studies for their own development, and dilettantes who only engage in photography per diletto, for pleasure and to pass the time. Even with this classification, the name of the exhibition would hardly be correct, because it contains universal material in which the specific arts and crafts play a large part; it shows the enormous expansion of photography in our time, of which portrait photography is only a very small individual case. Due to this versatility, one could say that the exhibition is filled with the work of professional photographers.

⎯ There is hardly an area of ​​art and science that does not have a connection with photography. This explains the lively interest shown in this technique even in the highest circles, and which finds its most striking expression in the fact that Her Majesty the Empress Frederick has granted the exhibition her patronage.

⎯ The exhibition not only gives a picture of art and science, no, it gives a description of the world in pictures, which ranges from the mists of emerging worlds to the tiniest creatures that treacherously gnaw at the health of our bodies; and those who are prevented by unfavorable circumstances from following their urge to travel far away will find satisfaction here, because Mother Earth is presented to them from the snow-covered peaks of the highest mountains to the deepest shafts of the burrowing miners, from the islands of the South Seas circling the globe to the west, to the magnificent landscapes of California.

⎯ On the whole, the practice of platinum and pigment processes predominate. Matte collodion paper is also often used, but cannot compete with the first-mentioned processes in terms of artistic impression, not least because of the bluish cold tone of the background, which is one of the disadvantages of stencil-based photography. Pictures with a glossy surface are only found in small numbers and least of all where the artistic effect of the picture is important.

⎯ We now enter the round domed hall, which has an international character. We would like to call it the fermentation vat of the exhibition, because here it ripples and foams and struggles for new means of expression and creates bubbles, some of which disintegrate, while others condense into core points around which new structures arrange themselves. Here you can hear the professional photographers cry out in horror, and yet they should be able to explain why a considerable number of visitors describe these works in particular as painterly and virtuosic. Does the secessionist idea have any justification alongside the traditional art forms? It undoubtedly deserves to be examined for its causes, its nature and its relationship to the traditional. It is the absolutely unfamiliarity that has a repulsive effect on the professional photographers here. They are used to looking at the world through photographic glasses and do not believe that it looks completely different in reality. But photography is old enough that these glasses will need new lenses that are a bit sharper. A picture that is hung on the wall must not be too small and must have a different, less decorative character than a picture that is kept in an album for intimate viewing. For this reason, the large pictures at the exhibition are so much more effective than the small pictures that one has to look at with a trained eye. (3.)

Compatriots in Photogravure: Franz Goerke & Alfred Stieglitz

And who was responsible for these “sumptuous hand-pulled photogravure plates” contained in Nach der Natur? The Photographische Gesellschaft in Berlin. As I’ve noted elsewhere on this site, the proper name of this atelier is The Berlin Photographic Company. Established in 1862 in Berlin, Germany with retail and distribution branch offices located in New York, London and Paris, this large art publishing house was founded by the brothers Christian “Albert” Eduard Werckmeister, (1827-1873) an engineer and chemist, and “Friedrich” Gustav Werckmeister, (1839-1894) a painter and etcher. The concern was collectively owned and run by their younger brother Emil Werckmeister. (1844-1923) The majority of their efforts concerned the reproduction and sale of engravings and notable oil paintings by master artists in the collections of major museums and collections throughout Europe, with the permanent process of photogravure a specialty of the house.

The establishment of fine photogravure production in Europe, including the earlier noteworthy efforts of Walter L. Colls in London for his Linked Ring Salon folios and Photo Club de Paris folios by Charles Wittmann in Paris set a very high bar for the future published efforts of Franz Goerke in Berlin and Alfred Stieglitz in New York.

After his publication of Nach der Natur, Goerke, (1856-1931) an important exponent of German art photography, took on the project of being editor and publisher for Die Kunst in der Photographie, (The Art of Photography) published in Berlin from from 1897-1908. Many of the hundreds of fine photogravure plates making up the run of DKIDP beginning with 1897 can be found in this archive. A founder along with others in 1889 of the Free Photographic Association in Berlin, Franz Goerke’s promotion of photography as art is summed up as part of his Preface to Nach der Natur:  

“The seed has been sown by this exhibition. May it bear rich fruit. Above all, it should convince those who still see artistic photography as a useless and pointless game that there is a deep and serious desire in amateur circles to raise photography to the status of art and to place it alongside other arts.”

An amateur photographer himself, Goerke’s passion as publisher and editor certainly piqued the interest of Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) in New York, a self-taught amateur photographer whose formal education included mechanical engineering, beginning in October, 1882, when he enrolled in the all male Technical University of Berlin (Technische Hochschule) and later photochemistry at the same institution- taught by Hermann Wilhelm Vogel. (1834-1898) An authority on orthochromatic photography, Vogel became a mentor to the young Stieglitz, and he later founded the Deutsche Gesellschaft von Freunden der Photographie (German Society of the Friends of Photography) in 1887.

At the conclusion of his university studies and Continental wanderings, Stieglitz returned to the US in September, 1890 at the passing of his sister Flora. At the urging of his father Edward, he soon became involved with the business venture of photoengraving: first at the struggling Heliochrome Company in lower Manhattan, which he eventually restructured. Taking on his two former Berlin roommates Louis Schubart and Joseph Obermeyer as partners, this concern was rechristened the Photochrome Engraving Company. Photogravure was a specialty, but Stieglitz soon became involved in other ventures-first co-editing the American Amateur Photographer in 1893, ultimately rising to sole editor in January, 1895, the increased workload among his other interests giving him “the opportunity to disentangle himself from the Photochrome Engraving Company”. (4.) Even without having a direct hand in his own atelier, by the time he received his copy of the Nach der Natur portfolio in late 1897, his obvious delight and respect for the photogravure plates executed within by the Photographische Gesellschaft in Berlin under Goerke’s mindful watch gave him obvious delight. This in turn gave him reason to author a review of the portfolio in the pages of the new publication Camera Notes, the journal of the New York Camera Club. Paraphrasing, his reaction to the quality of these plates proclaimed photogravure: “the most perfect of all photographic reproduction processes.” (5.)

The review in its entirety: “Nach der Natur” is without doubt the most elaborate and beautiful publication which has yet appeared in photographic literature.

The series of photogravures which form the bulk of the book, include pictures by the chief medallists of the Exhibition. Among the familiar names we find: Henneberg, Alexandre, Hannon, Farnsworth, Stieglitz, Le Beque, Bremard, Baynton, Esler, David, Boehmer, etc. The text, which serves as an introduction to the pictures, is an essay, which tries to prove that pictorial photography may be an art. Even if all the pictures selected may not prove the case most of them are perfect gems. The photogravures, as such, are beautiful specimens of the most perfect of all photographic reproduction processes.

The library of every photographic club should include this important work, as those interested in pictorial photography will find every phase of it well represented. A copy has been procured for the Camera Club Library.  A.S. (6.)

Stieglitz would go on to publish his own portfolio of fine photogravures: Picturesque Bits of New York and Other Studies in 1897, (N.Y.: R.H. Russell) the same year Nach der Natur appeared. On the other side of the Atlantic, Goerke’s  own Die Kunst in der Photographie, which should be considered the most important European publication directly inspiring the fine photogravures that soon appeared under the editorship of Stieglitz’s Camera Notes, would in turn lead him elevating the process to its apogee in the US: his groundbreaking and seminal venture Camera Work, published between 1903-17.

⎯ David Spencer  October, 2024

 

1.  Excerpt: Paul Hanneke: Internationale Ausstellung für Amateur – Photographie zu Berlin , Photographische Mitteilungen, Berlin: October, 1896: pp. 205-209/ continues: pp. 219-224; 235-37.

2. Excerpt: Ludwig David: “Die künstlerische Richtung auf der internationalen Ausstellung für Amateur-Photographie in Berlin,” Wiener Photographische Blätter, Wien: 3:11 (November 1896), pp. 201–215

3.Excerpt: “Berliner Nachrichten. September 1896.”, Photographische Correspondenz, Vienna & Leipzig: October, 1896: from unknown reviewer(s): (article signed: “Von der Hasenhaide”) pp. 471-477

4. Julia Thompson: Stieglitz’s Portfolios and Other Published Photographs: Alfred Stieglitz Key Set, NGA Online Editions, accessed September, 2024

5. Camera Notes, New York: Vol. 1, issue III: January, 1898

6. Ibid, p. 85

Speaking of photography in general, of which this website is particularly enamored of, our recent visit to Rochester, New York and attendance in the three-day conference “PhotoHistory/PhotoFuture” sponsored and organized by RIT Press and The Wallace Center at the Rochester Institute of Technology gave new meaning to their claims for the medium: “there has never been more of it than there is today.” That might be stating the obvious, especially in 2018, but the new meaning part was my own takeaway and inspiration.

In present day Kodak city, the power of ideas relating to what made this place significant as an imaging industrial behemoth still exists, but has now gone in a new direction. With all due apologies, but the pun indeed appropriate, a snapshot of those ideas put forth by the conference attendees and speakers shows their passion for the medium’s minutiae both preserves and continues this essential democratic language. Those of memories past surely, but more and more the future in the form of ones and zeroes hurtling forward.

Although the “Big Yellow” of Rochester’s past is long gone, the ideas nourishing photography’s entire corpus continues apace, an alternate reality both present and future. For those curious enough, the RIT conference program along with a list of presenters can be found here, along with a few photos from the weekend courtesy of yours truly.  David Spencer- 

Merry Christmas!

The following are a few snaps from my recent attendance at the symposium: Rethinking “Pictorialism” held in conjunction with the exhibition now playing at the Princeton University Art Museum in New Jersey: Clarence H. White and His World: The Art & Craft of Photography, 1895-1925. On exhibit at Princeton through January 7, 2018, the show will then travel to the Davis Museum at Wellesley College (MA) from 02-07-18 to 06-03-18; The Portland Museum of Art in Maine from 06-30-18 to 09-16-18 and the Cleveland Museum of Art in OH from 10-21-18 to 01-21-19.

When I remarried a dozen years ago, an obscure bit of farce entered the equation leading up to the “I do” moment. The fateful convolution? My beloved hailed from Newark, OH: the same Midwestern US city where pioneering art photographer Clarence Hudson White (1871-1925) had spent his formative years before leaving permanently along with his family to New York City in 1906.

But this aside is merely an excuse for the real purpose of this post: today is the official public opening of an exciting and ground breaking new exhibit on Clarence White at the Princeton University Art Museum in Princeton, New Jersey. Clarence H. White and His World: The Art and Craft of Photography, 1895-1925 will be on display there from October 7, 2017 to January 7, 2018. But don’t despair if you can’t make it right away, because the show travels to an additional three US museums through early 2019. Venue details along with additional links including one for the first comprehensive monograph on White published in conjunction with the show and authored by Anne McCauley, David Hunter McAlpin Professor of the History of Photography and Modern Art at Princeton University, concludes this post.

Several years before, I had taken a deep-dive into the remarkable life of White, whose arc resonated with me on many levels, especially his love for breaking the rules as applied to photographic lighting. To wit: what do you mean I can’t photograph my subject backlit? A simple optical concept today perhaps but in the late 1890’s? Revolutionary. I kid you not.

In groundbreaking photographs by White such as his brooding landscape figure study At the Edge of the Woods Evening (1900), a remarkable twilight composition showing his sister-in-law Letitia Felix emerging from a thicket with just a hint of light on the horizon became just one example of his early output. White’s decidedly masterful reinterpretation of the possibilities of light and the photographic medium done with artistic intent was quickly getting accolades in the press, and his work was soon honored in salons the world over beginning at the end of the 19th century.

Not bad for a man with limited means and a high school education. Employed as a bookkeeper in 1890’s Newark nearly seven days a week for the same wholesale grocery firm his father worked at, (the family had moved there in 1887 from nearby West Carlisle, OH), White first took up amateur photography a year after his 1893 marriage to Jane Felix, with the young photographer diligently saving weekly spare change from his salary for camera and darkroom supplies. Reportedly, his reality of only being able to afford the exposure of several glass plates a week necessitated lots of planning in order to make successful photographs. With outdoor locations previously scouted throughout Licking County and interiors often taken in the darkened homes of family and friends, these same subjects were further cajoled into wearing fashions from the American Civil-War era or earlier in order to evoke feelings of times gone by for the compositions.

A founding member of the American Photo-Secession movement begun in 1902 by Alfred Stieglitz, White’s transition from Newark to New York City in 1906 began a new chapter of teaching by the photographer, who soon made the acquaintance of artist and arts educator Arthur Wesley Dow, (1857-1922) who hired White as an instructor at Columbia University’s Teachers College in 1907. White would go on to found his own groundbreaking schools of artistic photography utilizing a modern pedagogy learned from Dow among others: first in Maine beginning in 1910 and then in New York City in 1914. Besides emphasizing pictorial photographic technique as well as numerous technical processes as part of the school curriculum, modern composition as espoused by Dow was taught along with art history through lecture format in classes by artists including early American cubist painter Max Weber (1881-1961) and later by artists including Charles James Martin (1886-1955) in the early 1920’s.

At 54, Clarence White died of a heart attack while accompanying photo students during a summer session of his school in Mexico City in 1925. Besides his important contributions as a ground-breaking photographic artist in the late 19th and early 20th century, his legacy as a teacher is perhaps more important as we finally begin to reevaluate his importance in the larger history of early artistic photography. The Princeton exhibition and accompanying monograph-the first truly comprehensive volume on White ever published, will further our understanding and appreciation for this gentleman.

PhotoSeed is honored to have played a small role in the exhibition showcasing Clarence White’s talents at photographic book illustration. A slim volume loaned for the show, Songs of All Seasons, published in 1904 with prose by his uncle Ira Billman and photographs by White, will be included in an exhibit display case.  An additional rare illustrated copy of Irving Bacheller’s best-selling novel Eben Holden from 1903, with photogravure plates by White, will also appear after it was acquired by Princeton from this archive. This site further intends to publish additional posts over the next several years chronicling White’s groundbreaking schools of photography as well as other aspects of his early and later life in Newark, OH and New York.

EXHIBITION SCHEDULE: Clarence H. White and His World: The Art and Craft of Photography, 1895-1925

Princeton University Art Museum         (10/07/17–01/07/18)

Further link to the exhibit at Princeton

Video:  Breaking down photographic processes used by Pictorialist photographers: a collaboration between the Princeton University Art Museum and the Yale Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage.

Davis Museum, Wellesley College                   (02/13/18–06/10/18)
Portland Museum of Art, Maine                      (06/22/18–09/16/18)
Cleveland Museum of Art                                    (10/21/18–01/21/19)

Book link:
October 31, 2017    408 pages, 10 x 11 1/2346 color + b/w illus.   ISBN: 9780300229080  Hardcover
Distributed for the Princeton University Art Museum