A farmer guides his horse from the rear while it drags an implement to break turf in preparation for planting.

George Edward Tingley: 1864-1958

 “So deeply interested and fond of all Nature it became my chief delight, with camera in hand, to stroll the countryside seeking to discover and record the beauties and secrets of field and streams, as they affected my imagination…” (1.)

As a photographer, George E. Tingley followed the tenets of “naturalistic” photography supported by Peter Henry Emerson in the late 1880s, which emphasized depicting the truth of the subject matter. Tingley was also a proponent of photography as an art form.

 Tingley was born in Old Mystic and worked and lived his entire life in the area he loved. He became an apprentice under local photographer Everett A. Scholfield and would later become his partner, with Tingley managing the studio on West Main Street in Mystic and Sholfield managing the studio in New London. In 1894, the partnership was dissolved and Tingley bought the Mystic studio.

 In 1895, Tingley won first prize in a national contest promoted by Wilson’s Photographic Magazine. He would go on to win many regional, national and international awards for his work from 1895–1916. He was also very civic minded and served as a charter member of the Mystic Hook and Ladder Company #1. Tingley chose to make his life in Mystic despite lucrative offers to move to Boston or New York. Just before his retirement in 1939, a fire destroyed his studio along with much of his life’s work.—100 Years of Photography: Mystic Arts Center Centennial Photography Exhibition catalogue: October 4- November 9, 2013 

Picturesque New London

As a field for the exercise of photographic study, Mystic and its immediate vicinity are remarkably prolific, and rife with subjects that delight the artistic eye. And in Mr. George E. Tingley, a resident of the town, it possesses a photographist of rare talent and discrimination, who, with his camera, secures wonderful scenic effects.

Mr. Tingley was born in Mystic September 17th, 1864. For nearly twenty years he has given his attention to the study of photography in its diverse forms, looking always to the possibilities of superlative artistic attainment. Truly, one is ready to believe that the environment has made the man. Mr. Tingley’s enthusiasm in his profession is unbounded. That his zeal and talent have borne abundant fruit is demonstrated by his universal fame and recognition.

His work is known far and wide for beauty and uniqueness of subject, and his collection of landscape and outdoor scenes is a revelation in photography. While he excels in portraiture and character studies, his chief delight is to roam a-field with his camera, and reproduce the lovely views in which his locality abounds. A citation of his work is really more within the province of a dissertation upon art than that of a mere untechnical description. However, in connection with the village of Mystic, his name and professional attributes and repute constitute more than a simple matter of relevance.

Within the past four years Mr. Tingley has been awarded eight medals for the excellence and artistic merit of his pictures, by the Photographers’ Association of America, the Photographers’ Association of New England and by the Photographers’ Association of Ohio. He has also frequently received honorable mention and various diplomas.—Picturesque New London and Its Environs: Groton, Mystic, Montville, Waterford, at the Commencement of the Twentieth Century: 1901: American book exchange, New London: p. 174

1. George E. Tingley, The William Benton Museum of Art, The University of Connecticut, An Exhibition of Photographs: October 14 – November 19, 1978, p.5