The Orchard

During the early twentieth century, Clarence H. White was an influential pictorial photographer and photographic educator. White was inspired to experiment with the camera after viewing contemporary art at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In 1897 he began exhibiting his work and won the Ohio Photographers’ Association Gold Medal in Cincinnati. In 1902 White was elected as a member of the Linked Ring, a London photographers’ society, and was a founding member of the Photo-Secession in New York. His work was featured in five issues of the Photo-Secession publication "Camera Work," between 1903 and 1910.

From 1893 to 1906, his most productive period, White created beautiful and original compositions placing his family and friends in simple domestic scenes of Midwestern middle-class life. "The Orchard," with its flat perspective, was influenced by Japanese prints. The overall softness and tonality reveal his fondness for James Abbott McNeill Whistler and William Merritt Chase. This print once belonged to Herbert Greer French, the only Cincinnati member of the Photo-Secession.