Gertrude Käsebier: 6 works

'At the turn of the century, Gertrude Käsebier was among the country's leading Pictorialists, as fine art photographers then called themselves, and the first issue of Alfred Stieglitz's lavishly produced and influential journal Camera Work in 1903 was devoted to her work. In addition to her more purely artistic compositions, she ran a highly successful portrait studio.'

'The sunlight that flows in through the open door and gently bathes the room also glimmers through the veil covering her face and trailing down her back. The print's vertical cropping emphasizes the figure, more clearly defining her posture of prayer.'

'With a transparent veil and classical draperies, she transformed an ordinary woman into the archetypal Madonna of religious painting.'

'While summering in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1899, Gertrude Käsebier staged and shot this photograph in a stable. She enlisted her friend, illustrator Frances Delehanty, to model for the image.'

'Such concepts as abstracted areas of light and dark resulting from direct and dramatic lighting techniques caused a stir of dissension among her contemporaries in the commercial field. However, her work was readily accepted and acclaimed by her colleagues in d1e art-photography Pictorialist groups that she was invited to join, both the Linked Ring Brotherhood in London and the Photo-Secession in New York.'

'Käsebier's portrait of White and his family perfectly embodies the artistic ideals of the moment: a luminous study of home life, removed from the modern urban world, softly printed in the warm tones of palladium paper. During the summers between 1910 and 1915, White ran a photography school on the coast of Maine, where students dressed in sailor suits and enjoyed instruction from White and critiques from visiting photographers including F. Holland Day, who summered nearby, and Käsebier, who traveled from New York.'