Clarence H. White and His World: The Art and Craft of Photography 1895-1925

A pioneer in photography, Clarence White played a pivotal role in asserting the new medium’s place as an emerging art form at the turn of the twentieth century. Organized by the Princeton University Art Museum—home to White’s archives—this first retrospective in decades reexamines the photographer’s contribution to the field, avowing his place among the ranks of his storied contemporaries: Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Alvin Langdon Coburn, among others.

Beginning with the eager amateur’s experimentations with photography in Newark, Ohio, the exhibition introduces visitors to White through his early forays into “pictorialism.” Drawing on inspiration from the contemporary art world of the day—the arts and craft movement, Japanese woodcuts, and trends in portraiture and genre painting—White created hauntingly beautiful images in grayscale that drew on the camera’s sensitivity to light and shadow. These images of tranquil domesticity and childhood wonder earned him esteem nationwide and paved the way to his participation in the Photo-Secession led by Alfred Stieglitz.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.

Whether or not you go, the accompanying publication, Clarence H. White and His World: The Art and Craft of Photography, 1895-1925 restores a gifted art photographer to his place in the American canon and, in the process, reshapes and expands our understanding of early 20th-century American photography. 

Clarence H. White (1871–1925) was one of the most influential art photographers and teachers of the early 20th century and a founding member of the Photo-Secession. This beautiful publication offers a new appraisal of White’s contributions, including his groundbreaking aesthetic experiments, his commitment to the ideals of American socialism, and his embrace of the expanding fields of photographic book and fashion illustration, celebrity portraiture, and advertising. Based on extensive archival research, the book challenges the idea of an abrupt rupture between prewar, soft-focus idealizing photography and postwar “modernism” to paint a more nuanced picture of American culture in the Progressive era.

To add this book to your library, click here: Clarence H. White and His World: The Art and Craft of Photography, 1895-1925