Study—Children and Waterfall, c.1904
Vintage platinum print
Image Size 8 × 6¼ in
Signed in pencil on recto | stylized dragonfly insignia
Tipped to tissue and paper mount
December 23, 2024
This vintage print is a gorgeous example of Pictorialist photography's synthesis of painterly romanticism and photographic craft. Eva Watson-Schütze deftly renders this sun dappled Arcadian scene, creating an affectionate ode to bucolic living.
Like many of the leading figures in Pictorialism, Watson-Schütze had overlapping interests in painting and photography. She studied with the key American painter Thomas Eakins and, as a close associate of Alfred Stieglitz, went on to be one of the founding members of the Photo-Secession.
In 1903, she began to spend summers near Woodstock at the newly founded Byrdcliffe Arts Colony, in the Catskill Mountains of New York. The Byrdcliffe Colony was part of The Arts and Crafts movement in the United States and an experiment in utopian artistic living. This photo was likely taken in an abandoned quarry where Watson-Schütze famously photographed her husband Martin in the nude, and it reflects the embrace of nature and ruralism amongst those involved in the movement.
