Contextual notes:
There can be a tendency to see the groups that practiced pictorialism as distinct entities that worked alone in different countries but this is far from the case. The leading individuals knew each other and exhibited widely at different salons and had their works published in contemporary journals.
Taking the image above by Robert Demachy (1859-1936), founder of the Photo-Club de Paris with Constant Puyo, Hachette and De Singly in 1894, as an example it was published multiple times including:
- FRANCE: "Deuxieme Exposition d'Art Photographique" of the Photo-Club of Paris (1895), Pl. II - Étude
- GREAT BRITAIN: The Photographic Salon - 1895 (London) Pl.13 - Study of a Head
- USA: Camera Notes, July, 1898 - Study in Red
Note that the name is different each time making the job of photo-historians rather more difficult.
The influence of the European salons upon the American and vice versa is complex and requires further research but many see Camera Work as the high point of pictorialist publishing but this is simplistic. Half of the 20 photogravures included in The Photographic Salon - 1895 (London) were later published in Camera Notes which was the magazine Alfred Stieglitz edited prior to Camera Work. In Germany Die Kunst in der Photographie edited by Franz Goerke, published from 1897 until 1908, was also influential and 23 of the photographers it included were later included in Camera Work.
When studying pictorialism it needs to be seen as a complex international network of personal relationships where the influences were certainly not in a single direction. |
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