Gertrude Kasebier

Wearing an antique dress, photographer Gertrude Käsebier pictures herself in this self-portrait as a traditional matron. In the world of fine art photography, however, Käsebier was hardly a conservative figure. One of the founding members of the Photo-Secession and the first photographer to be profiled in Alfred Stieglitz’s magazine Camera Work, she earned a reputation at the turn of the twentieth century for reimagining the creative possibilities of portrait photography.
After raising three children, Käsebier began training to be a painter at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute in 1889, but she decided to pursue photography instead. Less than a decade later, she opened her own professional studio in Manhattan, where she soon attracted many of the leading artistic and literary celebrities of the day. Refusing to employ the painted backdrops and contrived poses used by many portrait photographers, Käsebier adapted lessons drawn from her study of modern art to craft portraits that were rich in character and psychological insight.