Family Portraits
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Wright State University CORE Scholar Exhibition and Program Catalogs Robert and Elaine Stein Galleries 2-22-1987 Family Portraits Ronald R. Geibert Wright State University, [email protected] University Art Galleries, Wright State University Follow this and additional works at: https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/restein_catalogs Part of the Art and Design Commons, Art Practice Commons, and the Fine Arts Commons Repository Citation Geibert , R. R., & University Art Galleries, Wright State University (1987). Family Portraits. Dayton, Ohio: Robert and Elaine Stein Galleries, Wright State University. This Catalog is brought to you for free and open access by the Robert and Elaine Stein Galleries at CORE Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Exhibition and Program Catalogs by an authorized administrator of CORE Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. -------1-f-------- l Designed by Theresa Almond University Art Galleries Cover Photo by I. I. Freyman, Child-Wedding Tableau, Wright State University Library of Congress catalog card number: 86-51654 c. 1900, glass negatives printed by Emmet Gowin, 1978. Dayton, Ohio 45435 ISBN 0-932 706-13-4 D1~m DOllllllll 13~~~il 0153926il~iil~llllllllllllll llb fAMILY PORTRAITS February 22,March 20, 1987 Curated by Barry A. Rosenberg and Kathleen Peoples With essay by Ron Geibert University Art Galleries Wright State University Dayton, Ohio This exhibition and catalog were made possible through the Corporate Sponsorship of Lazarus and Federated Department Stores. T HER E S SOMETHIN G LAZARUS HAPPE NIN G FOR YOU he aim of our Family Portraits Special acknowledgement and thanks must T exhibition was to investigate the also be given to all of the lending artists, photographer's use of his/her own galleries, and institutions, and in particular to family as subject matter from the earliest days Richard Rudisill and Steve Yates from the of photography to the present. Although the Museum of New Mexico, Dominique Vassar idea of family portraiture seems elementary, to from the Dayton Art Institute, Van Deren our knowledge there has never been a large Coke, Donna VanDerZee, Cusie Pfeifer, scale exhibition mounted that explores this Julie Saul, Linda Fiske, and Tennyson Schad. theme. For this reason, Family Portraits is We would also like to acknowledge the unique. invaluable assistance of Stuart Delk, for the As with any exhibition, curatorial decisions installation and design of the exhibit; Lisa were enormous, and many good photographers Hogan-Fryer, for promotion; Jeff Smith, working in this field have not been included. Theresa Almond, Margaret Yoko, and the We have, however, attempted to highlight students of WSU. various methods and concepts that have been This exhibition was made possible through employed throughout the years, and we have grant and corporate support from the Ohio tried to present an overview of many of the Arts Council and from Lazarus and Federated most important artists who have dealt with Department Stores. We owe particular thanks family portraiture in the medium of to Mr. Douglas Thomsen and Mr. Robert photography. Lazarus for their special interest and From its conception to its completion, Family enthusiasm in our Family Portraits project. Portraits has involved the time and labor of many individuals and institutions. Special thanks and appreciation must be given to Barry A. Rosenberg, Director Dr. Carol Nathanson for germinating the idea Kathleen Peoples, Assistant Director from which our final theme emerged, and to Ron Geibert for his many suggestions and for his essay. We would like to extend our gratitude to Emmet Gowin for the loan of his personal photographs by I. I. Freyman and for his permission to use them as cover and publicity pieces. by Ron Geibert oon after the daguerreotype and calotype be no fault of the Daguerreotypists of the expressions. The difficult circumstances in Sphotographic processes were introduced in present day; for verily, they are limning faces which they were made certainly provide us a 1839, photographers adapted them to at a rate that promises soon to make every partial explanation for the strained looks and portraiture. Calotype inventor William Henry man's house a Daguerrian Gallery." 2 rigid poses. These technical shortcomings, Fox Talbot wrote in his photographic however, can not explain the continued use The demand on photographic studios for manifesto The Pencil of Nature that "Portraits of the same stylized postures and contrived "mirrored" images (i.e., daguerreotypes) was of living persons and groups of figures form one gestures by today's amateur and professional nothing less than phenomenal. One New York of the most attractive subjects in photographers. Further explanation of these studio boasted of producing upwards of a photography ... I have observed that family practices lies in the traditional meaning thousand portraits daily. 3 Mass production and groups are especial favourites: and the same attached to the act of having a family portrait cut-throat competition soon dropped the price five or six individuals may be combined in so made. for a palm-sized daguerreotype from two dollars many varying attitudes, as to give much to twelve and one-half cents. 4 Obtaining a Interestingly, at the very birth of photography, interest and a great air of reality to a series of likeness of oneself or family was no longer the even the desire to have a facsimile of oneself such pictures." By the early 1840s Talbot exclusive privilege of wealthy aristocrats with was suspect. A German newspaper reminded himself had already made hundreds of salted their highly paid portrait painters; inexpensive readers that "the wish to capture evanescent paper prints of family members and friends at photographic portraits were now readily reflections is not only impossible, as has been his family estate, Lacock Abbey. His wife, available to all classes of society. shown by thorough German investigation, but Constance, and four children posed so often the mere desire alone, the will to do so, is that someone suggested that the youngest A visit to an early photographic studio was not blasphemy. God created man in His own daughter, Matilda Caroline, should have been an experience to be easily forgotten. The low image, and no man-made machine may fix the renamed Photogena. 1 In Boston, the famed sensitivity of the photographic materials image of God." 6 This stem rebuke may not daguerreotypist Josiah Johnson Hawes also required brilliant light and lengthy exposures have deterred the curious and the sinful from began portrait work, capturing on a highly of several minutes. After climbing flights of trouping off to the photographers, but it may polished silvered copper plate an exquisitely stairs to a roof-top studio, the client was well have undercut their enthusiasm about spontaneous and delicate image of his wife and ushered into a large room bathed in light from such a visit with tinges of guilt and anxiety. daughter. By 1849 family portraiture was so ceiling skylights and reflective mirrors. Chair Even today, for most families a visit to a widespread that T. S. Arthur said " ... it is straps, neck braces, and head clamps were used neighborhood portrait studio is approached hard to find the man who has not -the shadowy to assure the camera operator of a motionless with the same degree of enthusiasm that we faces of his wife and children done up in subject. Then, as described by one client, "the reserve for a trip to the dentist. Any purple morocco and velvet [cases], together or operator promenaded the room with watch in narcissistic tendencies that we might have are singly, among his household treasures . and hand, calling out the time every five seconds, counterbalanced by feelings of anxiety. Our if our children and children's children to the till the fountains of my eyes were dry." 5 imperfections loom before us and rudely third and fourth generation are not in Today we are fascinated by those early portrait remind us of our insecurities and our possession of portraits of their ancestors, it will attempts and amused at the somber humanity. But we go, nevertheless, grimly reminding ourselves that our obligation to positions in the family gatherings. Failure to of preset lighting arrangements, prosaic posterity must take precedence over any conform with the traditional fictions risks backgrounds, and retouched negatives. The personal fears and reservations. puzzled expressions from peers as well as the customer is assured of a known product possibility of not appearing to be a loving and nothing more, nothing less. As early Indeed, this concern with posterity has turned as 1854 well-adjusted family. This cookie-cutter this homogenization of portraiture was the production of family photographs into approach discourages individuality, but it also recognized by Danish philosopher and ceremonial events. From the moment of birth, assures, at least superficially, a visual theologian Soren Kierkegaard "special occasions" are dutifully recorded, when he wrote continuity with traditional society and that "everything is being done to make mounted in albums, and carefully labeled. The us all humanity. look exactly the same-so that earliest moments, the baptism, first steps, we shall only need one portrait." 7 Given its lackluster past, senior prom, and wedding are carefully Vacation snapshots fare no better. We churn it should be of no surprise that m any artists memorialized for future generations. Most