Alice Boughton
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
photographer known for her photographs of many literary and theatrical figures of her time. She was a Fellow of Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form...
's Photo-Secession
Photo-Secession
The Photo-Secession was an early 20th century movement that promoted photography as a fine art in general and photographic pictorialism in particular. A group of photographers, led by Alfred Stieglitz and F...
, a circle of highly creative and influential photographers whose artistic efforts succeeded in raising photography to a fine art form.
Life
Alice Boughton was born in BrooklynBrooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, USA, on 14 May 1866 or 1867. Her parents were Frances Ayres and William H. Boughton, a lawyer in New York.
In the 1880s, Boughton began studying art and photography at the Pratt School of Art and Design. It was there that she met fellow student Gertrude Käsebier
Gertrude Käsebier
Gertrude Käsebier was one of the most influential American photographers of the early 20th century. She was known for her evocative images of motherhood, her powerful portraits of Native Americans and her promotion of photography as a career for women.-Early life :Käsebier was born Gertrude...
, with whom she later studied in Paris. Käsebier also employed her an assistant in her studio, mostly likely at the same time Boughton was studying at Pratt.
In 1890, she opened her own portrait studio on East 23rd Street
23rd Street (Manhattan)
23rd Street is a broad thoroughfare in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is one of few two-way streets in the gridiron of the borough. As with Manhattan's other "crosstown" streets, it is divided at Fifth Avenue, in this case at Madison Square Park, into its east and west sections. Since...
in New York, which she maintained for the next forty years. In 1904, she sent a letter to William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
that listed a studio address on Madison Avenue, indicating that she established or used more than one studio for at least a brief period.
Around 1901, Boughton studied art in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
and photography in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where she worked in Käsebier’s summer studio. She won an honorable mention for her work at the Turn International Decorative and Fine Arts Exhibition in 1902.
It is not known when she met Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form...
, but it is clear he knew of and admired her work by 1902 when he included two of her works in the inaugural exhibition at his Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession in New York City. Four years later, in 1906, Boughton was appointed by Stieglitz as a Fellow of the Photo-Secession
Photo-Secession
The Photo-Secession was an early 20th century movement that promoted photography as a fine art in general and photographic pictorialism in particular. A group of photographers, led by Alfred Stieglitz and F...
. The following year Stieglitz gave her, along with fellow photographers C. Yarnall Abbot and William B. Dyer, an exhibition at the Little Galleries. In 1909 she had six of her photographs and an essay called “Photography, A Medium of Expression” published in Stieglitz’s journal Camera Work
Camera Work
Camera Work was a quarterly photographic journal published by Alfred Stieglitz from 1903 to 1917. It is known for its many high-quality photogravures by some of the most important photographers in the world and its editorial purpose to establish photography as a fine art...
(No 26, April, 1909).
During this same period, her photographs were included in major exhibitions around the world, including shows in London, Paris, Vienna, The Hague and New York.
Boughton became one of the most distinguished portrait photographers of New York, although she did many landscapes in this country and Europe including the famous Rockefeller estate Kykuit
Kykuit
Kykuit , also known as John D. Rockefeller Estate, is a 40-room National Trust house in Westchester County, New York, built by the oil businessman, philanthropist and founder of the prominent Rockefeller family, John D. Rockefeller, and his son, John D...
at Pocantico Hills, New York
Pocantico Hills, New York
Pocantico Hills is a hamlet in the town of Mount Pleasant, New York, northeast of the village of Sleepy Hollow and southwest of the village of Pleasantville. The area was originally settled by native Americans of the Wecquaesgeek tribes; "Pocantico" means "running between two hills," and the name...
. She also produced studies of children, particularly of her own two daughters, as well as female nudes in allegorical or natural settings. Among her more famous works are portraits of Eugene O’Neill, Albert Pinkham Ryder
Albert Pinkham Ryder
Albert Pinkham Ryder was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as well as his eccentric personality...
, George Arliss
George Arliss
George Arliss was an English actor, author and filmmaker who found success in the United States. He was the first British actor to win an Academy Award.-Life and career:...
and Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
. Her portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
was an inspiration for John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
's own portrait of the writer.
From at least 1920 until her death, Boughton shared her residences with artist and art teacher Ida Haskell (1861–1932). Haskell is known to have been an instructor at Pratt while Käsebier and Boughton studied there. When Boughton traveled to Europe in 1926, Haskell accompanied her on the trip. The exact nature of their relationship is unknown.
In 1931, Boughton closed her studio and discarded thousands of prints. She moved permanently to the home in Brookhaven, Long Island, that she shared with Haskell.
Boughton died of pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
on 21 June 1943.
Her works are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, the British National Portrait Gallery, the U.S. National Portrait Gallery
National Portrait Gallery (United States)
The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in Washington, D.C., administered by the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of famous individual Americans.-Building:...
, the George Eastman House
George Eastman House
The George Eastman House is the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in Rochester, New York, USA. World-renowned for its photograph and motion picture archives, the museum is also a leader in film preservation and...
and other important museums.
Work and publications
A collection of her portraits, Photographing the Famous, was published in 1928, and included such luminaries as William Butler YeatsWilliam Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
, Julia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet, most famous as the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".-Biography:...
, Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
, Walter de la Mare
Walter de la Mare
Walter John de la Mare , OM CH was an English poet, short story writer and novelist, probably best remembered for his works for children and the poem "The Listeners"....
, G. K. Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, KC*SG was an English writer. His prolific and diverse output included philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction....
, Maxim Gorky
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
, John Burroughs
John Burroughs
John Burroughs was an American naturalist and essayist important in the evolution of the U.S. conservation movement. According to biographers at the American Memory project at the Library of Congress,...
, Ruth St. Denis
Ruth St. Denis
Ruth St. Denis was an early modern dance pioneer.-Biography:Ruth St. Denis founded Adelphi University's dance program in 1938 which was one of the first dance departments in an American university...
, Eleanora Duse and Yvette Guilbert
Yvette Guilbert
Yvette Guilbert was a French cabaret singer and actress of the Belle Époque.-Biography:...
.
Her work was also published in Camera Work in 1909.