A mother engages with her child. This is a rare surviving example of child portraiture done by the artist, most likely in her Berkeley, CA studio, although she also specialized in portraits taken in the homes of clients. A Benday masking process was used to enhance the print. (Description in Print Notes)

Kathleen Dougan: 1889-1988

1910: U.S. Census: Only 19, Dougan already lists her occupation as a studio photographer, joining her mother Ida M. Dougan  (Ida Mae Woodside: 1868-1951) in the profession. Address: 221 Hickory St. in Neosho, MO. Her father was Archie Dougan, b. 1864 in MO.

1920: U.S. Census: 29 years of age, she is still a photographer in Neosho, MO but is now listed as owning her own studio.

1925: Listed as portrait artist, part of a photographic jury, in Camera Craft for May. “The May Competition”, p. 249.

– Camera Craft editor Sigismund Blumann, who formerly owned “Mother and Child” as part of his collection, writes about Dougan in his July, “Chit Chat About our Friends” column:

Miss Kathleen Dougan  The personality shown in the work of this little lady has attracted the attention of parties outside the city and state and one of these days, when she gets the courage to pack up we shall miss her for a time while she travels to other parts to gather laurels away from home.  (p. 355)

– As a member and speaker of the Pacific International Photographer’s Association, she takes part in the annual convention for the group in San Francisco on September 2-5 at the Fairmount Hotel. Her portrait is further reproduced as a halftone in the pages of Camera Craft for August, her talk described: “The sweets are reserved for the dessert, Miss Kathleen Dougan. She specializes in Home Portraiture. No wonder. Any home should be open to her with a ready welcome. Her success in this particular branch makes her the one person to tell us how she went at it, how she operates, and what she does with the material available under the circumstances existing at any time and place.”  (p. 401) 

– Mention in August Camera Craft that Dougan takes over studio occupancy for a noted photographer: “Miss Kathleen Dougan has taken over the Dorothy Lange Studio at Broderick and Union Streets for an indefinite time and proposes to supplement the home portraiture on which her fame rests with gallery effects. This step nullifies a previous intention to again make her summer stay at Carmel.”  (p. 413)

– In July, a theatrical performance is held for the Photographer’s Association of Northern California at the Emporium Auditorium in San Francisco. One of the skits was called “Porcelain and Pink”- described as a “Bathroom Comedy”. Along with a photograph of Camera Craft editor Sigismund Blumann “Directing” with a megaphone, Kathleen Dougan is shown rehearsing- sans bathtub- for a vaudeville type skit along with another actress, as described in the August issue of Camera Craft: “Miss Kathleen Dougan and Miss Louise Bestler are shown here rehearsing the comedy which was the hit of the evening. Miss Dougan is shown fully dressed without the protection of the bath tub which constituted the star part in the real performance, while Miss Bestler stands by ready to catch her cue and add to the fun. The bald-headed fellow on the left is the editor directing. The megaphone is just bunk to help make the picture. The propinquity of the performers was really such as to make whispering adequate for the purpose – but Directors must have megaphones.”  (p. 406)

Editors note: Thanks to Sigismund Blumann’s grandson Tom High for discovering the name of the skit- Porcelain & Pink– had previously entered the public lexicon as the title of a short story- written as a play, by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in 1920 in The Smart Set, it was included in his 1922 volume Tales of the Jazz Age. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons) With the bathtub itself playing a leading, albeit silent role, the following is an excerpt between story characters Julie Marvis and older sister Lois:

JULIE: (Waving a pink arm around the room) The walls reflect the sound, you see. That’s why there’s something very beautiful about singing in a bath-tub. It gives an effect of surpassing loveliness. Can I render you a selection?

Lois: I wish you’d hurry out of the tub.

JULIE: (Shaking her head thoughtfully) Can’t be hurried. This is my kingdom at present, Godliness.

Lois: Why the mellow name?

JULIE: Because you’re next to Cleanliness. Don’t throw anything please! (p. 128)

– In September at the Pacific International Photographer’s Association convention, the bathtub bit entertainment was so successful the performance featuring Dougan was reprised but renamed (perhaps because of a friendly cease and desist from Scribner’s?) as  Pink Pickles and Bathtubs:

“In the evening came the event of the week, socially at any rate, in the nature of an entertainment and ball. The now famous Bath Room Comedy “Pink Pickles and Bathtubs” kept the audience in roars of laughter. Miss Kathleen Dougan was, as usual, delightful and what was seen of her pleased everyone. Miss Lois Bestler was a charming ingenue, and Ralph Young enacted the part of the mistaken swain outside the window with ability and discretion. The tub behaved and everything went beautifully.”  (Camera Craft, October: p. 499)

1926: October. Dougal hosts exhibit of her work in Berkeley:  “An exquisite laid paper invitation with an exquisite child’s picture on the first leaf came to us recently. It read: “You are cordially invited to view an exhibition of Pictorial Photography, Portraits of Children, Miniatures by Kathleen Dougal at the Hotel Claremont, The Ballroom, Berkeley. California. Friday, October Eighth.” We didn’t go because we couldn’t, but we knew what we should see if we did go. We have known Katie these several years and watched her progress, listened to her quiet, unassuming expression of hopes, ambitions, and ideals. We have seen much of her work and we know. So, knowing, we regretted our inability to attend the show and can nevertheless state from general hearsay that the affair was all the little lady hoped it to be, and fully up to what all her friends expected it to be.” (Camera Craft, November: p. 548)

1927: Described as a professional photographer, she is a jury member along with artist H. Seawell and pictorialist photographer Louis A. Goetz who award the Camera Craft Silver Cup to M.J. Osaki.  (Camera Craft, July: p. 340)

– The Stockton Independent newspaper in CA contains the following article for the edition of September 30th: Kathleen Dougan to Exhibit Photos Today:  Miss Kathleen Dougan of Berkeley, well known photographer will exhibit oil minatures (sic) and a number of photographic studies in the Philomathean club house today. All interested are invited to view her collection.”

1929: Opens Berkeley, CA photography studio, specializing in children. An original advertisement held by the Berkeley Historical Society (Collection Number: 2010.049.002) is described as: “Folded sheet announcing the opening of her photographic studio at 1829 Spruce Street, Berkeley, in Thornberg Village, also known as Normandy Village, with a rendition of the building on the cover. Contains a small photograph of a boy as an example of her work.” Advertising copy also states this child photograph of a young boy won first prize for Child Photography at the Pacific International Photographers Convention, San Francisco, in August, 1929.

1932-1939: Among other commercial work in the 1930s, she is a credited photographer for publicity photographs of: “Actors and sets for various productions, many of which were directed by Everett Glass. Some unidentified. Many (or all?) were Federal Theater productions (Oakland and San Francisco): some were at the San Francisco Players Club Theater, some at U.C. Berkeley. A few are identified as entirely African American productions in Oakland.” Collection: Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley- Collection Number BANC PIC 1978.149–PICLOCAL.

1937: Marries on December 31 to Dr. Glenn Edwin Hoover, (1887-1961) a professor of economics, in San Francisco, CA.

1940: U.S. Census: Portrait photographer at home, living at 4488 Rheinhardt Dr in Oakland, Alameda, CA.

1947: Her black and white photographs of birds are published as: Birds of California, A Pictorial Calendar For The Year 1947. Oakland, CA: Mills College, 1947. A photograph of Dougan at work by Imogen Cunningham includes the following biography: “Kathleen Dougan has been appropriately photographed by Imogen Cunningham while on a field trip to locate and observe more California birds than those represented on the following pages. For twenty years a well known professional photographer whose specialty is the portraiture of children, Kathleen Dougan (Mrs. Glenn Hoover) in recent years has developed an interest which perfectly combines avocation and vocation. Substituting a heavy graflex for fixed studio equipment, and selecting marsh and rock and lake for her backgrounds, she has succeeded in capturing for a moment and in the midst of movement those birds which form the subject of this calendar.”

1950: U.S. Census: No profession listed, living at 4488 Rheinhardt Dr. in Oakland along with husband.

1988: Dies. February 25. Buried at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, San Mateo, CA.