Preparing biographies Approved biography for George Wells
(Courtesy of Christian Peterson) |
A resident of Atlanta, George Wells was among the small number of pictorialists from the South. This part of the country had fewer camera clubs, salons, and practitioners than any other region.
Wells appeared three times in the American Annual of Photography’s "Who’s Who in Pictorial Photography" in the early 1940s. This listing indicated that his work was hung in twenty-six salons between 1940 and 1943 and that his most prolific season was 1941-42, when over fifty of his prints were accepted. Among the venues were the Atlanta National Salon of Photography, Rochester International Salon of Photography, and the New York salon sponsored by the Pictorial Photographers of America. Reproductions of pictures by Wells appeared in the American Annual of Photography 1943 and three times in the monthly American Photography in 1942.
Wells’s most seen picture was Translucence, of which the institute owns a print. This simple, light-infused still life of a basket and grapes is a prime example of high-key work, comprising mostly light values. It was displayed at camera clubs in Allentown, Boston, Hazelton (Pennsylvania), New York, Philadelphia, and Williamstown (Massachusetts). The museum’s print is the very one that took one of only twelve prizes in the 1942 annual competition of American Photography. The magazine’s associate editor, Arthur Hammond, so liked the print that he kept it for himself until his death; it was donated to the museum by a family friend of Hammond’s who inherited it.
Christian A. Peterson Pictorial Photography at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (Christian A. Peterson: Privately printed, 2012)
This biography is courtesy and copyright of Christian Peterson and is included here with permission.
Date last updated: 1 June 2013.
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