Photographer LAURA GILPIN

I've had this post card sitting on my bookcase for many years. I've always been drawn to this couple, wanting to know something about them.





So far I've found out nothing about the couple, but the photographer, Laura Gilpin, was quite well known.

Laura Gilpin (April 22, 1891– November 30, 1979) was an American photographer known for her photographs of Native Americans, particularly the Navajo and Pueblo, and her Southwestern landscapes.

Gilpin said she made her earliest dated autochome in 1908 when she was 17 years old. Since this process had only become widely available the year, she showed remarkable interest in photography for a teenage girl at that time. When she decided she wanted to seriously study photography, Käsebier advised her to go to at the Clarence White School in New York City. She moved there from 1916–1918 and learned the techniques and craft of her trade. She deeply admired White, whom she later called "one of the greatest teachers I have ever known in any field". Her early work was in the Pictorialist style, but by the 1930s she had moved away from the soft-focus look of that style. She found her true vision in the peoples and landscapes of the American Southwest, and she published several books on the region. Like her mentor Käsebier she made her living taking portraits, but in the mid-1930s she began to receive critical acclaim for her photographs of the Navajo and Pueblo peoples and for her landscapes. By the end of that decade she was exhibiting photos in shows throughout the United States and in Europe.

She went to become one of the great masters of the art of platinum printing, and many of her platinum prints are now in museums around the world. She said "I have always loved the platinum printing process. It's the most beautiful image one can get. It has the longest scale and one can get the greatest degree of contrast. It's not a difficult process; it just takes time."

Over a thirty-year period from 1945-1975 her work was seen in more than one hundred one-person and group exhibits.

In 1974 the governor of New Mexico awarded her one of the first Annual Awards for Excellence in the Arts. She continued to be very active as a photographer and as a participant in the Santa Fe arts scene until her death in 1979.

Gilpin's photographic and literary archives are now housed at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

To see a selection of her work click here for a Google image page.

All of her books selling at Amazon are out of print, but this one looks promising, Laura Gilpin: An Enduring Grace. I'll put this on my wish list for when I have spare cash which means I'll probably actually never see this book.