Gertrude Käsebier: The Complexity of Light and Shade

Gertrude Käsebier was both an artistic and a professional pioneer. In 1899, Alfred Stieglitz called her "beyond dispute the leading portrait photographer in the country," and he made her a founding member of his Photo-Secession movement, featuring her work prominently in his publications and exhibitions. A prestigious and successful portraitist, Käsebier photographed many of the major cultural figures of her day and was one of the first important magazine photographers. As a professional woman she boldly laid the path for many who followed. But perhaps her greatest achievement lay in her adventurous use of photography as an expressive medium to depict states of being and emotional relationships. To this end she experimented freely with different photographic techniques, leaving behind a body of work both vast and diverse. This catalogue for an exhibition held at the University of Delaware draws on the extensive collection of her photographs and papers at the university, bringing together a range of specialists to re-examine her work as a whole for the first time in two decades. In the essays, her work is explored in relation to the artistic and commercial trends in photography in the early 20th century; her printing techniques are analyzed using the newest techniques of photographic conservation; and her career is situated in relation to the modern trans-Atlantic figure of the New Woman. The catalogue features many previously unpublished photographs, as well as newly published texts by Käsebier drawn from the Special Collections holdings of the University of Delaware Library. This book offers a long overdue contribution to the study of this important photographer viewed within her cultural context. Includes 95 images of Käsebier's work.

Table of Contents:
Foreword and Acknowledgments Gertrude Käsebier in the University Museums The Complexity of Light and Shade: Gertrude Käsebier and the Field of Modern Photography - Stephen Petersen Käsebier’s Photographic Printing Methods and Their Long-Term Preservation - Debra Hess Norris, Jennifer Jae Gutierrez, and Greta Glaser Gertrude Käsebier in Context: The Feminist Politics of Modernity and Maternity- Margaret D. Stetz Introduction to the Plates - Stephen Petersen Plates Gertrude Käsebier in the University of Delaware Library - Timothy D. Murray Käsebier in Her Own Words - Selected and Edited by Stephen Petersen Bibliography

About the Author :
Stephen Petersen has an M.F.A. in photography and a Ph.D. in contemporary art history. He is on the faculty of the Corcoran College of Art + Design and has also taught the history of photography and various topics in twentieth-century art at the University of Delaware and the University of Pennsylvania. Janis A. Tomlinson is the Director of University Museums, University of Delaware, overseeing art collections and galleries as well as the mineralogical collection and museum, and serving as curator of the Old College Gallery.