Laura Gilpin

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Laura Gilpin (born April 22, 1891 in Austin Bluffs near Colorado Springs , † November 30, 1979 in Santa Fe ) was an American photographer .

Life

Laura Gilpin's parents were farmers and her father's uncle was William Gilpin , a pioneer governor . Her mother had to see an obstetrician at the birth who practiced a hundred kilometers from her former farm. Her father changed jobs frequently and the family lived in the town of Colorado Springs for a few years from 1896. Laura then went through various boarding schools and also briefly attended the New England Conservatory of Music .

During a visit to New York City in 1905, a portrait photo was taken of her and her eight years younger brother in Gertrude Käsebier's studio . On Käsebier's recommendation, Gilpin decided to take a 28-week photography course with Clarence Hudson White in New York in 1916 , where she also became a student of Max Weber . She made friends with the sculptor Brenda Putnam and lived with Elizabeth Forster for many years. She opened a photo studio in Colorado Springs, but also lived in other places as the housekeeper for her father, who worked in different cities. In 1925, in New York, she made sure that Herbert Putnam acquired photographs for the Library of Congress for the first time not for documentary, but for artistic reasons. That year she portrayed the pianist Harold Bauer . In 1924 she made her first tour to the southwest to Mesa Verde with Brenda and Betsy . In 1927 she published her first photo book, The Pikes Peak Region , which, however, did not sell well. It had its first exhibitions in 1929 and was purchased by the Library of Congress in 1930.

Mission Church in Ranchos de Taos . Photo from 1930

During the time of the Great Depression , in the early 1930s, she undertook several tours with Betsy in the Navajo region and also began making recordings for slides, which she showed, for example, at a working session of the Anthropological Institute in Santa Fe. In 1932 she made her first expedition to the Yucatán .

From 1942 to 1944 she was employed as a factory photographer for the aircraft manufacturer Boeing in Wichita (Kansas) in a company with 28,000 employees. In 1945 she carried out her Rio Grande project to record the 3000 km river landscape from the source to the mouth. The book was well received and, encouraged by Clyde Kluckhohn , she decided to revisit the Navajo. The project dragged on, as she always lived on the subsistence level, until The Enduring Navaho was published in 1968, and she dedicated the book to Betsy. The exhibition of her photographs associated with the book resulted in greater recognition and an honorary doctorate from the University of New Mexico in 1970 and from Colorado College in 1979 . The School of American Research in Santa Fe funded her project in Canyon de Chelly , but she never completed it. After applying to the Guggenheim Foundation four times in vain for a scholarship in her professional life, at the age of 83 she was awarded a fellowship that allowed her to complete her platinum deductions.

Gilpin, like other Pictorialists, mastered the platinum trigger , which, although it took more time, she preferred to the other methods. Her estate is administered by the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth , Texas .

Fonts (selection)

  • The Pueblos: A Camera Chronicle . Hastings house 1941
  • Temples in Yucatán: A Camera Chronicle of Hichen Itza . Hastings House 1948
  • The Rio Grande: River of Destiny . Duel, Sloan and Pearce 1949
  • The early work of Laura Gilpin, 1917-1932 . Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1981
  • The Enduring Navajo . University of Texas Press, 1987 ISBN 978-0-292-72058-9

literature

  • Martha A. Sandweiss: Laura Gilpin: an enduring grace . Amon Carter Museum, January 24-13 , 1986. Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth 1986 ISBN 0-88360-077-3
  • Martha A. Sandweiss: Denizens of the desert: a tale in word and picture of life among the Navaho Indians . Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988
  • Maida Tilchen: Land Beyond Maps , 2009 (historical novel about Gilpin with the Navajo)

Web links

Commons : Laura Gilpin  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martha A. Sandweiss: Laura Gilpin: grace of enduring . 1986, p. 13
  2. ↑ Martha A. Sandweiss: Laura Gilpin: grace of enduring . 1986, p. 16
  3. ↑ Martha A. Sandweiss: Laura Gilpin: grace of enduring . 1986, p. 29f
  4. ↑ a b Martha A. Sandweiss: Laura Gilpin: an enduring grace . 1986, p. 43
  5. ↑ Martha A. Sandweiss: Laura Gilpin: grace of enduring . 1986, p. 46
  6. ↑ Martha A. Sandweiss: Laura Gilpin: grace of enduring . 1986, p. 72
  7. ↑ Martha A. Sandweiss: Laura Gilpin: grace of enduring . 1986, pp. 75-85
  8. ↑ Martha A. Sandweiss: Laura Gilpin: grace of enduring . 1986, pp. 87-98
  9. ↑ a b Martha A. Sandweiss: Laura Gilpin: an enduring grace . 1986, pp. 105-113
personal data
SURNAME Gilpin, Laura
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American photographer
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Austin Bluffs near Colorado Springs
DATE OF DEATH November 30, 1979
Place of death Santa Fe