[Sister Mary Paul Lewis, a Sister of the Order of the Holy Family, New Orleans]

At the urging of her friend Julia Peterkin (1880-1961), an author with whom she collaborated, Doris Ulmann made several trips to New Orleans between 1929 and 1931. There she became intrigued with the Creole and Cajun residents as well as with the Sisters of the Holy Family convent in the city's French Quarter. She photographed the nuns (most of them African American) individually, in groups, and with their black students. This unidentified portrait presents a sister who seems to possess a regal bearing, her hands carefully cradling spectacles, and reflects Ulmann's interest in cloistered or isolated communities.

Adapted from Judith Keller. Doris Ulmann, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1996), 62. ©1996, J. Paul Getty Trust.