Nineteenth & early twentieth century photographs

Frank Eugene [Smith] (1865-1936) was born in New York but moved to Munich in his 20s where he studied art and soon became well-established as a portrait painter before he took up photography about 1885. He was elected to the Linked Ring in 1900 and was a founder of the Photo-Secession movement, undoubtedly because of his close personal and professional relationship to Alfred Steiglitz. A biography, The Dream of Beauty, was published in 1955. Eugene was known for his substantial manipulation of his negatives—so much so that the output was often a cross between a graphic work and a photographic print. In that he anticipated a number of contemporary artists and printmakers.

Master Frank Jefferson is the subject and title of this 1910 portrait, one of 28 prints published in Camera Work.

     
Portraits

Although Frank Eugene was particularly noted for the heavy manipulation of his prints, most of the portraits appearing in Camera Work are relatively unmanipulated. Eugene seemed to have no favorite way of posing his subjects—some are in profile, some are full figure, some elaborately costumed, some very naturally posed, almost as though they were "candids." For the most part, they are dark and somber, rather ill-lit.

This image is a formal pose in some ways, but the offering of the tea cup transforms it into something less so. The soft focus is not surprising among the pictorialists, but the very bight white of the teacup is. That, more than the young man's face, draws our immediate attention. (I have the actual print in front of me as I write this, and the high contrast is not the result of a poor scan—it is there in the image itself.)