Gertrude Kasebier: Her Photographic Career, 1894-1929
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City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 1985 Gertrude Kasebier: Her Photographic Career, 1894-1929 Barbara L. Michaels Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1848 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] INFORMATION TO USERS The most advanced technology has been used to photo graph and reproduce this manuscript from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. 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GERTRUDE KASEBIER: HER PHOTOGRAPHIC CAREER 1894-1929 by BARBARA L. MICHAELS A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Art History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York. 1985 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. COPYRIGHT BY BARBARA L. MICHAELS 1985 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Art History in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. [signature] S’/ill^ date Chairman of Examining Committee [signature] date ’ Executive Officer [signature] [signature] [signature] Supervisory Committee The City University of New York Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FOREWORD & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As a subject, Gertrude Kasebier has played hide and seek. Some aspects of her life and work are amply documented, others are elusive. Just as Kasebier tried to avoid portrait ists, she seems to have wished to evade the historian. Although she and her family saved her most valued photo graphs and negatives, and placed them in public collections, Kasebier destroyed her studio records and almost all nega tives. She kept some mementoes— letters, autographs, and articles about friends and about herself (now in the New York Public Library), but these alone could not tell her story. That comes largely from interviews (especially with her daughter, Hermine Turner, and her granddaughter, Mina Turner), from letters in the Alfred Stieglitz Archive in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, and from letters at the Norwood Historical Society, Norwood, Mass achusetts, the former home of her photographic colleague, F. Holland Day, as well as from letters she sent to Laura Gilpin, now in the Amon Carter Museurn, Fort Worth, Texas. A hunch led me to find the letters and photographs in the Musee Rodin, Paris, in 1978, soon after that important archive had been opened to the public. Much important infor mation also came from contemporary articles, many of which were to be found only by searching through photographic periodicals, because few early twentieth century articles on Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. V photography are catalogued in readers' guides. I can only regret that Mina Turner did not live to see this study completed. Despite debilitating illnesses, she devoted a great deal of time and effort to interviews, and generously opened her Kasebier memorabilia to me. As a one-time photographer, she recognized her grandmother's accomplishments, without ever indulging in ancestor-worship. Her delicious sense of humor and throaty voice brought descriptions of her grandmother to life. I am grateful, too, that Hermine Turner, in her nineties, could recount vivid recollections of her mother's life, work and friends, from the 1890's onward. Interviews with Kate Steichen and James S. Morcom, Mina's contemporaries who knew Kasebier well, also helped me to envision the photographer. Other Kasebier descendants— Mason E. Turner, Jr., Patricia Costello and Myke Cannon— have been generous in putting photographs and family records at my disposal. Of Kasebier's friends and acquaintances who responded to my queries, I am especially grateful to the photographers Imogen Cunningham, Laura Gilpin, Ralph Steiner, Paul Strand and Karl Struss, as well as to Knox Burger, Nina Vitale Cohen, Henry Blanchford, Phyllis Fenner and Wallace Putnam. Other useful information also came from the following people, whose relatives had sat for Kasebier-: Sarah Brandegee Brodie, Michael Burlingham, Henry Clifton, Jr., Evan Evans, Barbara Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. vi Ivins, Mrs. John McAndrew, and J. Riis Owre. Interviews with Flora Stieglitz Straus and Mrs. Clarence H. White, Jr. helped to augment my understanding of Kasebier's circle of colleagues. Mrs. Phyllis Hamilton, who knew Kasebier, Tom Cotton and Mies Hora, who owned her photographs, also deserve my thanks. So does the late Robert Ratner, lawyer for the Kasebier- Turner estate, his successor, Lawrence Friedman, and Mrs. Robert Ratner. The assistance of many people at various institutions has been indispensible. I am most indebted to the staff of the Museum of Modern Art's Photography Department: to John Szarkowski for his interest in this project while I was on the Department's staff and since, as well as to Susan Kis- maric, John Pultz, Peter Galassi, Catherine Evans and Sarah McNear, who made the Museum's fine, extensive collection of Kasebiers available to me, often on short notice and despite inconveniences during the Museum's renovation. The Museum's Steichen Archive has been a valuable resource, whose helpful ness was enhanced by the assistance of its devoted guardian, Grace M. Mayer. Helene Pinet of the Musee Rodin; Paris, Weston Naef, then of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Robert Sobieszek of the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, N.Y.; Valerie Lloyd of the Royal Photographic Society (then in London, now in Bath), England; David Haberstick of the Smithsonian Institution; Jerald Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. vii Maddox, Anne Peterson and Jerry L. Kearns at the Library of Congress; Sidney Starr Keaveney at Pratt Institute Library, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Mary Dean and William A. Gifford at the Norwood Historical Society; Donald Gallup, David E. Schoon over and others at the Beinecke■Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, all helped to make their holdings accessible to me. Anne Horton and Beth Gates-Warren of Sotheby Parke Bemet, Elizabeth Pollock at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Richard Hill at the New York Public Library have been particularly helpful, as were Barbara LaSalle and Barbara Head Millstein of the Brooklyn Museum. Walter Muir Whitehill, Catherine Nicholson, Theresa D. Cederholm and Helen Sevagian of the Boston Public Library responded helpfully to questions Information and assistance were also provided by James Enyeart, William Innes Homer, Estelle Jussim, Patricia Eichen baum Karetzky, Joy Kestenbaum, Mr. and Mrs. Jacques LeMair, Phoebe Lloyd, Dorothy Norman, Anita Ventura Mozley, Lloyd Ostendorf, Toby Quitslund, Geraldine