{"id":5014,"date":"2021-01-11T12:40:34","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T20:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/?p=5014"},"modified":"2021-01-11T12:40:39","modified_gmt":"2021-01-11T20:40:39","slug":"gertrude-kasebier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2021\/01\/11\/gertrude-kasebier\/","title":{"rendered":"Gertrude K\u00e4sebier"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Portrait by Adolf de Meyer circa 1900<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

She deferred her career that would bring her international fame until her three children were adolescents.\u00a0 She entered the prestigious Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York at the age of 37 to study portrait painting.\u00a0 At the age of 45 she opened her own portrait studios and in just three years she was considered by some to be the greatest photographer in the United States.\u00a0 Here is her remarkable story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Early Years<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gertrude Stanton was born on May 18, 1852 in Fort Des Moines, Iowa, later to be known simply as Des Moines.\u00a0 Her parents were John W. Stanton and Muncy Boone Stanton.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

n 1858 the Pike\u2019s Peak Gold Rush erupted and in 1859, Gertrude\u2019s father moved to the Colorado Rocky Mountains.\u00a0 He ventured by himself to Eureka Gulch to try his luck.\u00a0 He realized that hunting for gold was a hit-and-miss proposition but providing lumber for the building boom that would surely develop was a sure thing.\u00a0 He built a sawmill and was right.\u00a0 A year later, John brought his family west to live with him.\u00a0 The town of Eureka Gulch was renamed Golden and became the capital of the Colorado Territory.\u00a0 John was well liked and was elected Golden\u2019s first mayor.\u00a0 Many of Gertrude\u2019s playmates in Golden were American Indians and her contact with them resulted in a deep regard for them and would be the heart of some of the most beautiful and moving portraits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1864 the effects of the Civil War were felt in the Colorado Territory and John thought that it had become too dangerous for his family, so they moved back to the East Coast and settled in Brooklyn, New York.\u00a0 There John worked in mineralogy and Muncy rented out rooms in their home to boarders to earn a little extra money.\u00a0 Gertrude was already showing an interest in art, even at an early age.\u00a0 She removed some of their paintings from the wall, placed them flat on the floor and knelt next to them, pouring over them, examining every detail with the intent of understanding how she could to that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

In 1868, Gertrude moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to live with her maternal grandmother.\u00a0 The reason for the move was so she could enroll in the Moravian Seminary for Women, the first women-only school and an institution of high repute.\u00a0 While living in Pennsylvania she would make periodic trips back to Brooklyn to visit her family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On one of those trips, she met a gentleman who happened to be boarding there \u2013 Eduard K\u00e4sebier.\u00a0 He was a handsome enough fellow, who came from a German aristocratic family and had a pleasant disposition.\u00a0 Rebounding from a failed relationship, Gertrude married Eduard in 1874.\u00a0 She was 22.\u00a0 Gertrude\u2019s mother was delighted with the match.\u00a0 Eduard had built a successful business in New York importing shellac.\u00a0 She saw him as a perfect match for her daughter.\u00a0 In the first six years of their marriage, they had three children – Frederick William born in 1875, Gertrude Elizabeth born in 1878 and Hermine Mathilde born in 1880.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even as a young girl, Gertrude was independent and strong willed.\u00a0 She also had a natural talent for art.\u00a0 These qualities gave her the drive and the ability that would help carry her to the heights of achievement that she would later enjoy.\u00a0 But Gertrude and Eduard were people with markedly different personalities and needs, and neither could fulfill the other\u2019s needs.\u00a0 The marriage, instead of being a success, deteriorated into irreconcilable differences and even hostility.\u00a0 The Victorian social norms of the day precluded even the thought of a divorce, but their relationship became so bitter that they ultimately separated.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0She was quite explicit in her feelings about marriage when she said, “If my husband has gone to Heaven, I want to go to Hell. He was terrible…Nothing was ever good enough for him.”\u00a0 Gertrude took the children and moved to a farm in New Durham, New Jersey for a healthier place to raise her children.\u00a0 Eduard continued to support them.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t have been all bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

K\u00e4sebier was a devoted mother but she still found time to pursue her passion for painting.\u00a0 “After my babies came, I was determined to learn to use the brush. I wanted to hold their lovely little faces in some way that should be also my expression, so I went to an art school; two or three of them, in fact. But art is long, and childhood is fleeting, I soon discovered, and the children were losing their baby faces before I learned to paint portraits, so I chose a quicker medium.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Middle Years<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 1889, when her children were approaching adolescence, K\u00e4sebier enrolled in the prestigious Pratt Institute to formally study portrait painting.\u00a0 She was 37 when she enrolled and studied there until 1893.\u00a0 Eduard paid for her tuition.\u00a0 At that time the Pratt did not offer instruction in photography.\u00a0 However, many of the students were taking pictures as a hobby, including K\u00e4sebier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1894 was a pivotal year in her life as far as her photography is concerned.\u00a0 First, she won a prize for a photograph of a woman that was printed in the Quarterly Illustrator<\/em>.\u00a0 When she told her instructors at the Pratt, they criticized her so mercilessly that she was shamed into giving her winnings away.\u00a0 But on a more positive note, she went to Europe where she sought out the German chemist Hermann Wilhelm Vogel whose interest was in the chemistry of photography.\u00a0 From Vogel she learned the chemistry of the development and print processes that she would use throughout her career and that enabled her to be the accomplished Pictorialist photographer she was to become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But her time in Europe was cut short.\u00a0 The following year she received word that her husband was gravely ill, and she immediately returned to Brooklyn.\u00a0 The doctors gave Eduard a year to live (although he ended up living ten more years).\u00a0 This prompted her to think seriously about starting a portrait photography business, not only to financially support their family but also to fulfill her need to become a portrait photographer.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before she could do that, however, she had to gain a reputation.\u00a0 So, she apprenticed with the established portrait photographer Samuel H. Livesey whom she knew from the Brooklyn Photographic Club.\u00a0 With Livesey she developed her skills as a portrait photographer, leaned the business and assembled an impressive portfolio of hundreds of photographs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a rapidly expanding body of work, she received several photo exhibits in 1895.\u00a0 The Boston Camera Club displayed 150 of her photographs.\u00a0 These same photographs were later displayed at the Pratt Institute.\u00a0 Her style of photography was reminiscent of the Old Master paintings although she denied making any conscious attempt to imitate them.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, it is clear that the development and printing techniques she learned from Vogel and that she put into practice in her photography put her squarely in the Pictorialist movement and her keen creative eye placed her in its upper echelon.\u00a0 The aim of this style of photography was to create photographs that looked like paintings.\u00a0 It was a very intensive process that involved painting on negatives and using gum bichromate often of different hues and in several layers in making the prints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having acquired a reputation from her exhibits and learned the business side from Livesey in 1897 she opened her studio.\u00a0 She set it up in her apartment to avoid the criticism she was sure to receive from the prevalent Victorian view of women starting a business.\u00a0 A woman working out of the home was OK but out of an office was scandalous.\u00a0 The decor was simple, warm and inviting.\u00a0 She chose this in order to put her subjects in a relaxed, open mood before she put them in front of a camera.\u00a0 Her reputation as a portrait photographer rapidly grew and she was sought out by the upper crust of New York society including actress Evelyn Nesbit, architect Stanford White, author Mark Twain, artist Robert Henri, and photographers F. Holland Day and Edward Steichen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Stieglitz Years<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 1898 she extended her association with the elite Pictorialist photographers of the day by introducing herself to Alfred Stieglitz, the most influential photographer of his time.\u00a0 Stieglitz himself embraced Pictorialist techniques and had connections with other Pictorialist photographers such as Clarence H. White and Edward Steichen.\u00a0 K\u00e4sebier realized that her association with these well-established photographers could very well accelerate her career.\u00a0 This occurred while Stieglitz was active in the Camera Club of New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chief Flying Hawk (1898)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In that same year, K\u00e4sebier attended Buffalo Bill\u2019s Wild West Show.\u00a0 Seeing the Indians in the show brought back memories of her childhood playmates in Colorado.\u00a0 She sent a letter to William F. Cody, requesting permission to photograph the American Indians in his show in her studio.\u00a0 He agreed and K\u00e4sebier started her project of photographing members of the Sioux people, a project that continued for many years.\u00a0 She took an approach that was opposite of Edward Curtis\u2019 who famously photographed the American Indians in their regalia.\u00a0 \u201cI want a real raw Indian for a change\u2026the kind I used to see when I was a child.\u201d\u00a0 She shrived to tell the stories as shown in their faces and, as a result, produced some of her finest work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flying Hawk was a warrior who fought in many of the significant battles \u2013 The Great Sioux War of 1876, the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876 and the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890.\u00a0 Anger seethed inside him and he was unable to hide it.\u00a0 This comes through in his photograph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1898 was also the year where K\u00e4sebier officially joined the ranks of the elite photographers of the nation.\u00a0 The Philadelphia Photographic Salon announced that they were going to create an exhibition of the works of American photographers.\u00a0 They received over 1,200 photographs of which they accepted only 259.\u00a0 And of those that were accepted, ten of them were K\u00e4sebier\u2019s.\u00a0 At the age of 46, just three years after her first exhibit, this resounding success established her as one of the finest photographers of the era and definitely put her on a par with the master himself, Alfred Stieglitz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Manger, c.1900<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In the following year, her reputation continued to grow.\u00a0 A photograph she created titled \u201cThe Manger\u201d sold for $100, the most ever paid for a photograph up to that time and for many years beyond.\u00a0 Stieglitz, who was the editor of the magazine Camera Notes<\/em> published by the Camera Club of New York, published five of her photographs and declared her to be \u201cbeyond dispute, the leading artistic portrait photographer of the day.\u201d\u00a0 And fifteen of her photographs were shown at the Boston Arts and Crafts Exhibition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the following years, K\u00e4sebier\u2019s impact on photography continued to grow.\u00a0 The Newark (Ohio) Photography Salon recognized her as “the foremost professional photographer in the United States.\u201d\u00a0 Her photographs continued to be featured in numerous magazines.\u00a0 They regularly appeared in the World’s Work: Magazine of the Arts and Public Affairs<\/em> through 1932.\u00a0 And she participated in the Paris Exposition.\u00a0 Perhaps the most significant recognition of her importance was her election to Britain\u2019s Linked Ring, an exclusive group of photographers.\u00a0 She was the second woman to be elected to the organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1901 influential art critic Charles H. Chaffin published an article about K\u00e4sebier in Everybody\u2019s Art<\/em> titled “Photography as Fine Art–Mrs. Gertrude K\u00e4sebier and the Artistic-Commercial Portrait.”\u00a0 Also, that same year, Chaffin published his landmark book Photography as a Fine Art<\/em>, in which he devoted an entire chapter to K\u00e4sebier.\u00a0 She was even featured in an article in the Ladies\u2019 Home Journal<\/em>.\u00a0 She spent most of the year in Europe, traveling with Edward Steichen who introduced her to the sculptor Auguste Rodin.\u00a0 K\u00e4sebier was able to take numerous portraits of the reclusive artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stieglitz formed the Photo-Secession group in 1902.\u00a0 Its purpose was to promote photography as a legitimate art through the techniques of Pictorialist photography.\u00a0 K\u00e4sebier was invited to be one of the founding members.\u00a0 Stieglitz took his experience as editor of the Camera Club of New York\u2019s publication and created a new publication, Camera Work<\/em>, devoted to the mission of the Photo-Secession group.\u00a0 Stieglitz was so impressed with K\u00e4sebier\u2019s works that he included six of her photographs in the first edition.\u00a0 In fact, he continued to feature her photographs in subsequent editions.\u00a0 This culminated in 1906 when he mounted an exhibition of Clarence H. White and K\u00e4sebier\u2019s works at the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession as a prime example of Pictorialist photography by two if its most accomplished photographers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Post Stieglitz Years<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But in 1908, Stieglitz\u2019s approach to photography as art underwent a major shift.\u00a0 He abandoned the Pictorialist movement and denounced it in the strongest terms. In its place he adopted the Modernist method of Straight Photography.\u00a0 Where Stieglitz had showered praise on K\u00e4sebier in earlier days, now he denounced her continued commitment to Pictorialism.\u00a0 He also strongly opposed her financial success as a sought-after portrait photographer, believing that goal of art was not financial rewards.\u00a0 Their friendship came to an end although she remained a member of the Photo-Secession group.\u00a0 However, in this year she resigned from the Linked Ring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attacks on her continued and in 1911. \u00a0K\u00e4sebier was the subject of a sharply critical assault from Joseph T. Kelley in Photo Works<\/em>.\u00a0 At the time it was suspected that Stieglitz had put Kelley up to it.\u00a0 A year later K\u00e4sebier resigned from the Photo-Secession group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Yoked and Muzzled<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, K\u00e4sebier pressed on.\u00a0 Another of her passions was encouraging women to take up photography as a profession.\u00a0 In 1913 she authored an article for the New York Times on this topic.\u00a0 Her painful relationship with her husband, who had died in 1909, may have influenced her to promote this idea.\u00a0 She was profoundly committed to motherhood as emphasized in so many of her photographs of mothers and their small children.\u00a0\u00a0 However, she did not idealize the notion of marriage in her photographs but rather portrayed it as a burden in the few photographs devoted to this subject.\u00a0 It was through her independent and self-reliant spirit that she had achieved the enormous success that she enjoyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYoked and Muzzled\u201d is considered to be K\u00e4sebier\u2019s depiction of her marriage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to encouraging women to take up photography, she taught at the school Clarence H. White founded in Maine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An ardent Pictorialist photographer throughout her active years, she joined with Clarence H. White in forming The Pictorial Photographers of America in 1916.\u00a0 The organization is still active today and even has a Facebook page although they have transitioned to the digital age.\u00a0 The Williamsburg Art and Historical Center celebrated the 100th<\/sup> anniversary of the organization in 2016 with a show titled \u201cPlatinum to Pixel: Pictorial Photographers of America Turns 100.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Stieglitz\u2019s didactic personality caused members of the Photo-Secession to start falling away and in 1917 he abandoned it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

K\u00e4sebier\u2019s health had been deteriorating since 1905.\u00a0 She was not immune to the stresses in her life and on top of that, her vision and hearing had started to decline.\u00a0 Fortunately, her youngest daughter, Hermine K\u00e4sebier Turner, was also a fine photographer and in 1924 she joined her mother in the business.\u00a0 They worked together until 1929 when K\u00e4sebier closed her studio and sold all of her equipment.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last several years of her life she paid less attention to photography and more on supporting Pictorialist photography by participating in exhibitions.\u00a0 A major retrospective of her work was mounted in the Brooklyn Museum.\u00a0 Also, in the same year the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences celebrated the Grand Dame with a one-person exhibition.\u00a0 She was affectionately referred to as \u201cGranny\u201d by many of her colleagues which helped to relieve Victorian gender prejudices while recognizing her natural “tendency to act forcefully on her own behalf.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gertrude Elizabeth K\u00e4sebier died on October 12, 1934 in the home of her daughter Hermine.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her Legacy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Blessed Art Thou Among Women<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Gertrude K\u00e4sebier was certainly one of the greatest portrait photographers to ever put a camera between her creative eye and her subject. \u00a0She had the ability to draw out the true selves of her subjects whether they were celebrities, American Indians or simple people off the street.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it was her passion for portraying the beauty of motherhood that led her to some of her most moving photographs.\u00a0 She romanticized and even idealized the relationship between mother and child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her portraits of the American Indian provide us with a personal look into their lives and beings.\u00a0 We see them without pretense or exaggeration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was a powerful advocate for women taking up photography as a profession and shared what she had learned in her career by conducting photography classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All in all, she played an important role in establishing photography as a fine art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1979 she was inducted into the International Photographers Hall of Fame.\u00a0 hat same year a major retrospective of her work was mounted in the Delaware Art Museum.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1991 the New York Museum of Modern Art featured her in an exhibition.\u00a0 And in 2002 her photograph, Blessed Are Thou Among Women<\/em>, was used on a United States commemorative postage stamp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here legacy and influence lives on.<\/p>\n

(350)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The remarkable life of Gertrude K\u00e4sebier, considered by many to be the greatest portrait photographer of her time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[515,1503,1510,13,1511],"class_list":["post-5014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","tag-alfred-stieglitz","tag-edward-steichen","tag-gertrude-kasebier","tag-photography","tag-portrait-photography"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Nl7-1iS","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5014"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5027,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5014\/revisions\/5027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}