International studio (32.1907)

The Photo-Secession in America

“THE LOTUS EATER” BY S. L. WILLARD

Clarence H. White, of Newark, Ohio, is located
where he can receive new inspiration constantly
from the freedom of the “open.” More than one
of Mr. White’s most distinguished accomplish-
ments have been composed entirely with out-door
settings. In these, glimpses of quaint, conventional
gardens vie with the homely effects of orchard
landscapes. With such subjects, Mr. White has
been especially successful in the line of illustration.
Simple and direct in all his work, Air. White
portrays a peculiar grace in his figure treatments.
The Kiss for instance, revealing the shadowy forms
of two young girls, is almost ethereal in its poetic
significance ; and a delightfully simple rendition is
his narrow panel portrait of Miss J. D. Reynolds,
reproduced like the last-mentioned print in “Art
in Photography.” The Statuette, and the portrait
of Miss Lucy Wyeth (pp. 206 and 204), are also
noteworthy prints.

T. M. Edmiston, who is also a Newark man, is
an earnest, convincing artist—one to whom senti-
ment is a reality and to whom poetry is a mission.
A good example of his sympathetic rendering is
In the Wood (p. 214), a fanciful picture of two
young women gowned in old-fashioned attire.

Of the women artists in the field, Miss Gertrude
Kasebier, who belongs to the New York group, is
one of the most accomplished labourers. An item
of personal interest in her history is that she enjoys
the distinction of having been the first American
painter to have entered the ranks of the pro-
fessional photographers, and while in no way sug-

gesting the sense of imitation, her keen, unerring
perception, together with her intelligent treatments,
reflect to a large degree in her photographic art
her experiences as a painter. In her delineation of
women, two examples of which were given in “ Art
in Photography,” she evinces a charm that is wholly
irresistible—it is delicacy and grace personified
and united in one.

Mrs. Eva Watson-Schiitze has received excellent
training in the academic branches, having devoted
some six years to the departments of drawing and
modelling at the Pennsylvania Academy. Mrs.
Watson-Schiitze is a Chicago woman, who, while
she identifies herself with western ideas, still keeps
in touch with the east, her former home; and, above
all, remains true to her own convictions. Indeed,
no artist of distinction, no period or fad, nor the
influence of any medium, aside from photography,
has the least hold upon her. Beyond this, she is
in love with her work, so that her marked originality
is always impressed with a rare tenderness of feel-
ing. As a portrait artist she has met with
unusual success, her studies of Clarence White
and Wm. B. Yeats being particularly good ex-
amples. Again, in characterisation Mrs. Watson-
Schiitze is exceedingly apt, as her bewitching
creation of Kundry in “ Art in Photography ”
and the two subjects here reproduced convin-
cingly show. Wherever is to be found her rather
naive seal, consisting of a conventionalised dragon-
fly enclosed in a loosely sketched rectangle, one
is sure to observe an interpretation of| lofty

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