A young Dutch woman knits while seated on a chair inside a home.

Myra Albert Wiggins: 1869-1956

Wiggins was an American painter and pictorial photographer who became a member of the important early 20th century Photo-Secession movement.

Early years (1869–89)

Wiggins, née Myra Jane Albert, was born on December 15, 1869 in Salem, Oregon. She was the second of four children born to John Henry Albert and Mary Elizabeth Holman. Her father worked his way from being a bookkeeper in a local linseed oil company to becoming president of the Capital National Bank in Salem.

She showed natural artistic talent at an early age, and she would spend hours drawing and painting both in her home and in the fields around Salem. Her parents encouraged her talent both because she was very good and because a cultural background in the arts was expected for upper class women of the time. When she was 17, she won the first of many awards for painting at the Oregon State Fair, and between 1886 and 1907 she won a total of 94 more state fair awards for her art.

About 1888 she met her future husband, Frederick Arthur Wiggins, who was the owner of a local store that was one of the first to offer a variety of products under one roof. Among the products he offered were bicycles, which at that time were first becoming a craze among younger people, and Myra recalled that she first met Fred while riding around town on her bicycle. Their families were very active in outdoor activities, and several times a year they would see each other at outings in the area.

Wiggins said that her introduction to photography was her brother’s doing since he wanted to take a photograph of his sweetheart and, not having a camera, thought their father would be more likely to buy one if both of them said they would use it. In 1889, they acquired a large glass-plate camera and tripod, and soon she was using it far more than her brother. Some of her first pictures were taken on one of her family’s many trips to the Oregon Coast.

Within two years she won a new camera as first prize in the amateur division of a competition held by West Shore magazine, and many of the photographs she submitted for the contest were exhibited at the Portland North Pacific Industrial Exposition in 1890.

Becoming an artist (1890–99)

Like many progressive women of the late 19th century, Myra was sent to New York City for her higher education. She studied at the Art Students League of New York from 1891 to 1894, where she took classes from William Merritt Chase and John Twachtman. Chase in particular influenced her thinking about art, and when she brought her photographs for him to view he would sometimes write comments on the back of them. She immortalized Chase in a famous 1891 photograph of the artist teaching at the league, surrounded by his female students.

While she was studying in New York, she would return to Salem during the summers, and in the summer of 1892, she announced her engagement to Fred Wiggins. When she returned to New York that fall, she became one of the first female members of the New York Camera Club. She used the club’s darkroom facilities, and it was here that she met Joseph Keiley, an influential photographer, writer, and close friend of Alfred Stieglitz. -Wikipedia (2024) continues…