GERTRUDE KASEBIER Mrs. Alexander Tison (Nancy Jane), 1904 Platinum Print, 7.9x6" mounted on dark gray heavy paper 11x6.9" laid on white board 8.5x12.4 on darker heavy paper 1/16 inch large on heavy beige paper 18.8x12.6" Mounting in this style was common as it gave the prints a "framed" appearance ASG# GSK/1054 Signed in her blocky pencil style on print lower right, numbered MCMIV (1904) on lower left of print.

Gertrude Kasebier's best-known subjects were of women and mothers and their children. Here find a fully rendered, richly printed signed and dated platinum, typical of her high style as a pioneer woman artistic photographer.

Gertrude Kasebier (1852 - 1934) Born in Fort Des Moines, Iowa, Gertrude Stanton was passionate about painting and drawing from early childhood. When she was twenty-two, she married Eduard. Kasebier longed to be an artist and after her children reached adolescence, she enrolled in the Pratt Institute to study drawing and painting. By 1894 she had added photography to her techniques and that year won two photography contests. On a yearlong trip to Europe she realized that photography was her vocation. While in Germany she studied with Hermann Wilhelm Vogel, the same chemist that Stieglitz had worked with.

She opened her own studio at age thirty-six in an effort to bring in income and further her career as a photographer. She began exhibiting her photographs at the Boston Camera Club in 1896 and at the Pratt Institute. Kasebier became acquainted with Alfred Stieglitz who admired her work for its independent artistic expression and promoted it in his publication Camera Notes. He also organized solo exhibitions of her work at the Camera Club of New York By 1901 her photographs had been exhibited in Paris and London, and she became the first woman elected to The Linked Ring of art photographers. She traveled to Paris with Edward Steichen where she photographed August Rodin. She was one of the founding members of the Photo-Secession group of whom Stieglitz was the leader. The first issue of his Camera Work, released in 1902, contained six illustrations and two articles by Gertrude Kasebier. Motherhood and portraiture, generally of Women were Kasebier's favorite themes. She helped elevate the photographic portrait to the status of an art form.

Excellent very rich tones and minor wear. Mount page in margins has handling marks on largest of the mount paper that also has worn edges, corner crunches, and lower right corner of mount margin ¼ inch missing