Eugene Lee Ferguson, an active member of the Camera Club of the Capital Bicycle Club of Washington, D.C., was an important proponent of artistic photography in America in the 1890’s. In 1896, he is credited by the Smithsonian Institute as being the primary organizer of the Washington Salon and Art Photographic Exhibition, considered the first important exhibit of collected art photography in the United States. Ferguson, the secretary treasurer of the exhibit committee, claimed an 1897 copyright (as indicated in lower left corner margin) for this portrait of a woman holding up her cat.