Gertrude Käsebier was 37 and a mother of three when she decided to attend art school in 1889. Within 10 years, she had acquired a favorable reputation and in the early 1900s, she became a co-founder of the Photo Secession movement. This American organization aimed to promote photography as a craft and a proper art form, rather than just a visual aid to painters or a means to record facts. In order to achieve pictorial images, its members often experimented with new techniques and surfaces, and manipulation was seen as a logical constituent of the creative process. The results could be deliberately scratched, grainy, soft-focus or very moody and were indeed a far cry from the traditional photographs that had prevailed during the 19th century.
As Käsebier’s star rose, some of her work fetched record prices and this commercial success led to a troubled relationship with the leader of the Photo Secession, Alfred Stieglitz, who felt this to be at odds with the spirit of a true artist. She resigned from the Photo Secession, but continued to produce and advocate fine art photography.
In all its simplicity, this photo of a young Evelyn Nesbit shows Käsebier’s quality as a portraitist: it’s both dreamy and direct, posed and natural. It seems to contain the essence of adolescence: Evelyn looks at ease, aware of her beauty, while the road ahead of her is still unknown. She has the irresistible combination which puts fear into a mother’s heart and makes men lose their heads: she’s sexy and innocent at the same time. In Evelyn’s case, sadly, this would indeed prove to have fatal consequences when her husband shot a well-known architect and former lover in a jealous rage. This sensational crime of passion reappeared 70 years later in E.L. Doctorow’s famous novel Ragtime.
(Text: Pauline Dorhout)
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