Gertrude Käsebier and Clarence White were leading figures in
the world of turn-of-the-century American art photography, tapped by Alfred
Stieglitz to be founding members of the Photo-Secession, his loose association
of kindred spirits, and reproduced in the pages of his lavish journal Camera
Work. Käsebier’s portrait of White and his family perfectly embodies the
artistic ideals of the moment: a luminous study of home life, removed from the
modern urban world, softly printed in the warm tones of palladium paper. During
the summers between 1910 and 1915, White ran a photography school on the coast
of Maine, where students dressed in sailor suits and enjoyed instruction from
White and critiques from visiting photographers including F. Holland Day, who
summered nearby, and Käsebier, who traveled from New York. It was undoubtedly
on one such visit that she photographed White, his wife Jane, and their three
sons, Maynard, Clarence Jr., and Minor.