- Lucille Thomajon
Sheet: 7 3/8 × 6 1/16 in. (18.7 × 15.4 cm)
Mount: 14 1/16 × 10 15/16 in. (35.7 × 27.8 cm)
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When she opened her portrait studio in 1897, at age
45, Gertrude Kasebier was determined to introduce more artistic considerations
into her photography than had existed in most nineteenth-century portraiture. Such
concepts as abstracted areas of light and dark resulting from direct and dramatic
lighting techniques caused a stir of dissension among her contemporaries in the
commercial field. However, her work was readily accepted and acclaimed by her
colleagues in d1e art-photography Pictorialist groups that she was invited to
join, both the Linked Ring Brotherhood in London and the Photo-Secession in New
York.
In the pictures she made for exhibition, Kasebier's
subject matter distinguishes her work from those by other Pictorialists. Women,
children, and motherhood, often depicted with metaphorical undercurrents, form
the body of her work. Some works bore titles such as Yoked and Muzzled-Marriage,
The Bride, and The Heritage of Motherhood, which idealized the
figures portrayed. When she specifically identified her subjects, she sought to
make "not maps of faces, but pictures of real men and women as they know
themselves." This straightforward portrait of Lucille Thomajon presents a
woman in an elegantly patterned gown looking with solemn alertness over her
shoulder. It is also a masterful example of impressionistic light and shadow to
which Kasebier was sensitized by her training as a painter.
Provenance[Paul M. Hertzmann, Inc., San Francisco]; purchased by MFAH, 1985.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
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