Doris Ulmann
Encyclopedia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
, particularly craftsmen and musicians such as Jean Ritchie
Jean Ritchie
Jean Ritchie is an American folk singer, songwriter, and Appalachian dulcimer player.- Out of Kentucky :Abigail and Balis Ritchie of Viper, Kentucky had 14 children, and Jean was the youngest...
's family, made between 1928 and 1934.
Life and career
Doris Ulmann was a native of New York City, the daughter of Bernhard and Gertrude (Mass) Ulmann. Educated in a private school—at the Ethical Culture Fieldston SchoolEthical Culture Fieldston School
The Ethical Culture Fieldston School, known as "Fieldston", is a private "independent" school in New York City and a member of the Ivy Preparatory School League. It has about 1600 students and a staff of 400 people , led by Dr. Damian J...
, a socially liberal organization that championed individual worth regardless of ethnic background or economic condition—and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, she intended to become a teacher of psychology. Her interest in photography was at first a hobby, but after 1918 she devoted herself to the art professionally.
She practiced Pictorialism
Pictorialism
Pictorialism is the name given to a photographic movement in vogue from around 1885 following the widespread introduction of the dry-plate process. It reached its height in the early years of the 20th century, and declined rapidly after 1914 after the widespread emergence of Modernism...
was a member of the Pictorial Photographers of America. Ulmann documented the rural people of the South, particularly the mountain peoples of Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
and the Gullah
Gullah
The Gullah are African Americans who live in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina and Georgia, which includes both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands....
s of the Sea Islands
Sea Islands
The Sea Islands are a chain of tidal and barrier islands on the Atlantic Ocean coast of the United States. They number over 100, and are located between the mouths of the Santee and St. Johns Rivers along the coast of the U.S...
, with a profound respect for her sitters and an ethnographer's eye for culture. Ulmann was trained as a pictorialist and graduated from the Clarence H. White School of Modern Photography. Other students of the school who went on to become notable photographers include Margaret Bourke-White
Margaret Bourke-White
Margaret Bourke-White was an American photographer and documentary photographer. She is best known as the first foreign photographer permitted to take pictures of Soviet Industry, the first female war correspondent and the first female photographer for Henry Luce's Life magazine, where her...
, Anne Brigman
Anne Brigman
Anne Wardrope Brigman was an American photographer and one of the original members of the Photo-Secession movement in America. Her most famous images were taken between 1900 and 1920, and depict nude women in primordial, naturalistic contexts.-Life:Brigman was born in the Nuuanu Valley above...
, Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange was an influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration...
, Paul Outerbridge
Paul Outerbridge
Paul Outerbridge, Jr. was an American photographer prominent for his early use and experiments in color photography...
, and Karl Struss
Karl Struss
Karl Struss, A.S.C. was a photographer and a cinematographer of the 1920s through the 1950s. He was also one of the earliest pioneers of 3-D films. While he mostly worked on films, he was also one of the cinematographers for the television series Broken Arrow.He was born in New York, New York and...
. Her work was exhibited in various New York galleries, and published in Theatre Arts Monthly, Mentor, Scribner's Magazine
Scribner's Magazine
Scribner's Magazine was an American periodical published by the publishing house of Charles Scribner's Sons from January 1887 to May 1939. Scribner's Magazine was the second magazine out of the "Scribner's" firm, after the publication of Scribner's Monthly...
, and Survey Graphic
Survey Graphic
The Survey Graphic was a United States magazine launched in 1921. From 1921 to 1932, it was published as a supplement to The Survey and became a separate publication in 1933. The SG focused on sociological and political research and analysis of national and international issues...
. Ulmann was married for a time to Dr. Charles H. Jaeger, a fellow Pictorialist photographer and an orthopedic surgeon on the staff of Columbia University Medical School and a likely connection for her 1920 Hoeber publication, The faculty of the College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University in the City of New York: twenty-four portraits This was followed in 1922 by the publication of her Book of Portraits of the Medical Faculty of the Johns Hopkins University; the 1925 A Portrait Gallery of American Editors, and in 1933, Roll, Jordan Roll, the text by Julia Peterkin
Julia Peterkin
Julia Peterkin was an American fiction writer....
. The fine art edition of Roll, Jordan Roll is considered to be one of the most beautiful books ever produced.
In an interview with Dale Warren of Bookman, Doris Ulmann referred to her particular interest in portraits. "The faces of men and women in the street are probably as interesting as literary faces, but my particular human angle leads me to men and women who write. I am not interested exclusively in literary faces, because I have been more deeply moved by some of my mountaineers than by any literary person. A face that has the marks of having lived intensely, that expresses some phase of life, some dominant quality or intellectual power, constitutes for me an interesting face. For this reason the face of an older person, perhaps not beautiful in the strictest sense, is usually more appealing than the face of a younger person who has scarcely been touched by life."
Ulmann's early work includes a series of portraits of prominent intellectuals, artists and writers: 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...
, John Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
, Max Eastman
Max Eastman
Max Forrester Eastman was an American writer on literature, philosophy and society, a poet, and a prominent political activist. For many years, Eastman was a supporter of socialism, a leading patron of the Harlem Renaissance and an activist for a number of liberal and radical causes...
, Sinclair Lewis
Sinclair Lewis
Harry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of...
, Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford was an American historian, philosopher of technology, and influential literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a writer...
, Joseph Wood Krutch
Joseph Wood Krutch
Joseph Wood Krutch was an American writer, critic, and naturalist.Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, he initially studied at the University of Tennessee and received a masters degree and Ph.D. from Columbia University. After serving in the army in 1918, he travelled in Europe for a year with friend...
, Martha Graham
Martha Graham
Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...
, Anna Pavlova, Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
, and Lillian Gish
Lillian Gish
Lillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....
. In 1932 Ulmann began her most important series, assembling documentation of Appalachian folk arts and crafts for Allen Eaton's landmark 1937 book, Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands. From 1927, Ulmann was assisted on her rural travels by John Jacob Niles
John Jacob Niles
John Jacob Niles was an American composer, singer, and collector of traditional ballads. Called the "Dean of American Balladeers", Niles was an important influence on the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, with Joan Baez, Burl Ives, and Peter, Paul and Mary, among others,...
, a musician and folklorist who collected ballads while Ulmann photographed. In failing health, she suffered a collapse in August 1934 while working near Asheville, North Carolina
Asheville, North Carolina
Asheville is a city in and the county seat of Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. It is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the 11th largest city in North Carolina. The City is home to the United States National Climatic Data Center , which is the world's largest active...
and returned to New York. Doris Ulmann died August 28, 1934.
Upon Ulmann's death, a foundation she had established took custody of her images. Allen Eaton, John Jacob Niles
John Jacob Niles
John Jacob Niles was an American composer, singer, and collector of traditional ballads. Called the "Dean of American Balladeers", Niles was an important influence on the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, with Joan Baez, Burl Ives, and Peter, Paul and Mary, among others,...
, Olive Dame Campbell
Olive Dame Campbell
Olive Dame Campbell was an American folklorist.Born Olive Arnold Dame in West Medford, Massachusetts, she married John C. Campbell, American educator, in 1907. After his death, she co-founded and directed the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina in 1925...
(of the John C. Campbell Folk School
John C. Campbell Folk School
John C. Campbell Folk School, also referred to as "The Folk School" is located in Brasstown, North Carolina. The School was founded to nurture and preserve the folk arts of the Appalachian Mountains, it is an non-profit adult educational organization based on non-competitive learning...
in Brasstown, North Carolina), Ulmann's brother-in-law Henry L. Necarsulmer, and Berea schoolteacher Helen Dingman were named trustees. Samuel H. Lifshey, a New York commercial photographer, developed the negatives Ulmann had exposed during her final trip, and then made proof prints from the vast archive of more than 10,000 glass plate negatives. (Lifshey also developed the 2,000 exposed negatives from Ulmann's last expedition, and produced the prints for Eaton's book.) The proof prints were mounted into albums, which were annotated by John Jacob Niles
John Jacob Niles
John Jacob Niles was an American composer, singer, and collector of traditional ballads. Called the "Dean of American Balladeers", Niles was an important influence on the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, with Joan Baez, Burl Ives, and Peter, Paul and Mary, among others,...
and Allen Eaton, chair of the foundation and another noted folklorist, to indicate names of the sitters and dates of capture.
The primary repository of Ulmann's work is at the University of Oregon
University of Oregon
-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...
Libraries' Special Collections. The Doris Ulmann collection, PH038, includes 2,739 silver gelatin glass plate negatives, 304 original matted prints, and 79 albums (containing over 10,000 Lifshey proof prints) assembled by the Doris Ulmann Foundation between 1934 and 1937. The silver gelatin glass plate negatives are the only known remaining Ulmann negatives. Of the 304 matted photographs, approximately half are platinum prints that were mounted and signed by Ulmann; the others are silver gelatin prints developed by Lifshey. Additional collections can be found at Berea College
Berea College
Berea College is a liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky , founded in 1855. Current full-time enrollment is 1,514 students...
in Kentucky (primarily images taken in the vicinity of Berea), The University of Kentucky (consisting of 16 original signed portraits, and 186 original silver nitrate prints), and the New York Historical Society (primarily of prominent New Yorkers). As art objects, her photographs are also part of many museum collections including the Smithsonian and the J. Paul Getty Museum
J. Paul Getty Museum
The J. Paul Getty Museum, a program of the J. Paul Getty Trust, is an art museum. It has two locations, one at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, and one at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California...
. Doris Ulmann was an extremely private person and left no documentation other than her images.
Published in Ulmann's lifetime
- Ulmann, D. (1919). The faculty of the College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University in the City of New York. New York, Hoeber.
- Ulmann, D. (1920). The faculty of the College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University in the City of New York: twenty-four portraits. New York, Hoeber.
- Ulmann, D. et al. (1922). A book of portraits of the faculty of the Medical Department of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press.
- Ulmann, D. (1925). A portrait gallery of American editors. New York, W.E. Rudge.
- Ulmann, D. (1928). "Among the Southern mountaineers: camera portraits of types of character reproduced from photographs recently made in the highlands of the South," The Mentor, v.16 pp. 23–32. New York, N.Y., Crowell Pub. Co.
- Peterkin, J. M., D. Ulmann, et al. (1933). Roll, Jordan, roll. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill.
- [unattributed] (1930). "The stuff of American drama in photographs by Doris Ulmann," Theatre Arts Monthly, v. 14 pp. 132–146. New York, NY: Theatre Arts, Inc.
Later works
- Eaton, A. H., D. Ulmann, et al. (1937). Handicrafts of the Southern highlands; with an account of the rural handicraft movement in the United States and suggestions for the wider use of handicrafts in adult education and in recreation. New York, Russell Sage Foundation.
- Ulmann, D. (1971). The Appalachian photographs of Doris Ulmann. Penland, N.C. Jargon Society.
- Ulmann, D., R. Coles, et al. (1974). The darkness and the light. [New York] Aperture.
- Ulmann, D., J. J. Niles, et al. (1976). The Appalachian photographs. Highlands, N.C., Jargon Society.
- Ulmann, D. (1976). Photographs of Appalachian craftsmen: a retrospective exhibition, April 6-May 1, 1976. Cullowhee, N.C., Western Carolina University.
- Ulmann, D., et al. (1978). An exhibition for the dedication of the Traylor Art Building, Berea College, Berea, Kentucky: Doris Ulmann's photographs; ritual clay: Walter Hyleck; the Berea College collection. Berea, Ky., Berea College.
- Ulmann, D. and D. Willis-Thomas (1981). Photographs by Doris Ulmann: the Gullah people [exhibition] June 1-July 31, 1981, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library Astor Lenox and Tilden Foundations. New York, The Library.
- Banes, R. A. (1985). Doris Ulmann and her mountain folk. Bowling Green, Ohio, Bowling Green State University.
- Featherstone, D. (1985). Doris Ulmann: American portraits. Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press.
- Curtis, E. S., D. Ulmann, et al. (1986). The last photographs. Haverford, Pa., Comfort Gallery Haverford College.
- Keller, J. (1988). After the manner of women: photographs by Käsebier, Cunningham, and Ulmann. Malibu, Calif., J. Paul Getty Museum.
- McEuen, M. A. (1991). Changing eyes: American culture and the photographic image, 1918-1941.
- Oeltman, M. T. (1992). Doris Ulmann, American photographer, and the Southern Agrarian movement.
- Lovejoy, B. (1993). The oil pigment photography of Doris Ulmann. Lexington, Ky., [s.n.].
- Lamuniere, M. C., J. M. Peterkin, et al. (1994). Roll, Jordan, roll: the Gullah photographs of Doris Ulmann. University of Oregon.
- Sperath, A. (1995). Ceramics Kentucky 1995. Murray, Ky., The Gallery.
- Ulmann, D. (1996). Doris Ulmann: photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum. Malibu, Calif., The Museum.
- Ulmann, D. and J. Keller (1996). Doris Ulmann: photography and folklore. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum.
- Ulmann, D. et al. (1997). Picture gallery photography by Doris Ulmann. University of Oregon.
- Rosenblum, N., S. Fillin-Yeh, et al. (1998). Documenting a myth: the South as seen by three women photographers, Chansonetta Stanley Emmons, Doris Ulmann, Bayard Wootten, 1910-1940. Portland, Or., Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery Reed College.
- Ulmann, D. et al. (1999). Myth, memory and imagination: universal themes in the life and culture of the South: selections from the collection of Julia J. Norrell. McKissick Museum. Columbia, S.C., McKissick Museum University of South Carolina.
- Kowalski, S. (2000). Fading light: the case of Doris Ulmann. University of Oregon.
- Jacobs, P. W. (2001). The life and photography of Doris Ulmann. Lexington, University Press of Kentucky.