The two camera artists mentioned above realized the situation, and after carefully amassing the opinions of pictorialists throughout the country (west of the Mississippi River), came to the conclusion that it was time to make a move of some sort to bring the younger generation of pictorialists to the front. The result was the Salon Club of America, which was quietly organized in December, 1903, by eleven pictorialists whose work had successfully passed the Salon juries of recent exhibitions at Philadelphia and Chicago -- namely, Mrs. Jeanne E. Bennett, Louis Fleckenstein, Walter Zimmerman of Philadelphia, Curtis Bell, Carl Rau, W. G. Corthell of Wollaston, Mass., J. W. Shuler of Akron, Ohio, Ralph E. Berger of Reading, Pa., J. H. Field of Berlin, Wis., the Parrish sisters of St. Louis, and Herbert A. Hess of Crawfordsville, Ind. Since then Carl Bjorncrantz, Nellie Coutant, Zaida Ben-Yœsef, Adolph Petzold and Harry Hall, and (just as we are going to press) the two Washingtonians, C. H. Claudy and C. E. Fairman, have joined the ranks of this enthusiastic little guild of camera workers.
The trend of their work can perhaps be best judged from their monthly portfolio. It is carried out in this fashion. Each member prepares several mounted prints monthly and writes a brief description of them for insertion in a monthly portfolio, which is forwarded by the Director with a list of members, according to the most convenient route for making the circuit quickly. Each member receiving the portfolio writes a criticism for mutual advantage and instruction on the blank accompanying each print, and forwards it to the next member.
I had the opportunity to see one of these portfolios at Miss Ben-Yœsef's studio.
The work is very promising. It is not yet exactly what the French call arrivŽ. The majority of the Salon Club members is still experimenting and searching for a manner of expression in which the characteristic qualities of photography may be most perfectly exhibited -- and, I hope, its limitations most loyally respected. Nearly all seem to be possessed by a clear idea of the things they want to say. Many of their prints show strong and individual workmanship, while others still lack that technical finish which we have become accustomed to in photographic prints. Their range of subjects is a very wide one, and they are particularly strong in landscape work.
The four most accomplished members of the Salon Club are Jeanne E. Bennett, Walter Zimmerman, Curtis Bell, and Adolph Petzold.
Like most of the Salon Club workers Jeanne E. Bennett is a newcomer. Her special realm is Brittany, and she apparently never tires of depicting little hooded girls at the ferry, fetching water at the brook, roaming through the fields, or busy with some domestic occupation in old-fashioned interiors. Her work is at times wonderfully vital, and always subtle and delicate. Each of her pictures has a meaning, and is handled with beautiful skill and rare artistic feeling.
In seriousness of work Walter Zimmerman can not easily be surpassed. He has rarely been seen in print, but his work is easily remembered, since all that he does shows the thoroughness of the artist whose work represents the pictorial as well as the photographic quality. He has contributed but little to current exhibitions, but whatever he has shown publicly is powerful, studied and noteworthy. His "Church Interior, Brittany" is an admirable piece of work, in which difficulties that would stagger even the most accomplished of pictorialists have been successfully subdued and mastered.
Curtis Bell is a very versatile talent. He is equally efficient in popular genre like his "Ravvy and Caddy," in children portraits -- his "As Big as Mamma" is one of the best I have ever seen -- and in landscapes, in which he effects a simple, quiet style. Pictures like his "Coming Storm" and "A Boyhood Memory" (the picture of an old country fence) hold their own in the best of company. His "Boat House" shows what can be done with material essentially modern and supposedly unpicturesque.
Among our American landscape photographers Curtis Bell, Adolph Petzold, and J. H. Field occupy a unique position. They do not believe that it is the duty of a landscapist to see everything according to decorative formulae. They have the faculty of disengaging the practical significance of the commonplace object and fact. Curtis Bell sees everything in a minute pictorial way, as some American landscape painters interpret nature. Petzold's early work was also careful and elaborate, but he has gradually made his way to far greater simplicity and far greater power. The massiveness of his "Winter Twilight" is characteristic of his most individual mood of working. J. H. Field is less direct and bold; his strength is nervous, delicate, and refined. He sees nature with the eyes of a lyrical poet.
The products of the two founders of this organization are of a very original sort, Louis Fleckenstein is as versatile as Curtis Bell, his popular genre pictures are rather weak and commonplace, but his landscapes and interpretations of children are worthy of all attention. His capricious, piquant, and virile imagination, as displayed in his "Song and Danseuse" and "The Pastoral," in unique in our photographic art. Who would ever think of depicting a little girl in a chaste attitude with the frivolity of a Boldini. It may be a trifle morbid, but what of that, as it is at least original and of excellent workmanship. Make any kind of picture you like my dear pictorialists, so long as they be beautiful pictures.
Carl Rau has an individuality in a field of work which is little cultivated. He tries his talents in symbolist genre. His themes are very ambitious -- in his "Mill" his art even assumes epic proportion -- but his technical or rather his pictorial skill does not always prove sufficient to carry out the idea. In his "At St. Mary's" he wished to convey "not so much a picture of a Catholic form of worship, but rather a symbol of peace, of rest, away from the busy world." A praise-worthy task, but does the picture really give us the impression of peace? I fear not -- but I may say so much that whatever Rau puts into his work, it still remains interesting. His studies of old men's heads, on the other hand, leave me rather indifferent.
The Parrish sisters of St. Louis are newcomers in the literal sense of the word. They are, I have heard, hardly more than two years at it. Their work still bears the earmarks of dilletantism. Their "Sleepy Girl," however, shows decided talent. One might say of it -- for it is pleasant at times to drive a tandem of three adjectives -- that it is brilliant, ambitious, eloquent, and melodramatic. The Parrish sisters are no doubt young ladies plein d'avenir. I expect a great deal of them. But at present were it not that they were young, their prints would not interest one very much. I should have glanced them over in the mood of Heine's hero who cried thrice "Tirily" and having tirilied, spun around on his heel and went on his way. The day will come, however, when I will have to pay full homage to their impeccable mastery of art.
The works of Nellie Coutant -- the "little wooden shoe" pictorialist -- of Zaida Ben-Yœsef, whom I have always considered our leading portraitist on semi-artistic lines -- and of Herbert Arthur Hess, our American "von Gloeden" are too well known to be specially discussed. Also Carl Bjorncrantz, an excellent young worker; Ralph E. Berger, particularly fond of flat tone interpretations; J. W. Schuler, a clever landscape worker; Geo. Donehower, C. H. Claudy, and C. E. Fairman have done and do interesting things, but whom the lack of space at this occasion must deprive of further comment.
Two pictorialists, however, who can not be omitted from the briefest sketch are Henry Hall and W. G. Corthell. Hall seems to have made a specialty of child life. He represents really a marvelous amount of individuality in each of his little men and women. His "Rough and Ready" is a masterpiece. My friends Albert L. Groll, the landscape painter, and Roland Rood, a critic of many moods and modes of thought, both agreed that "it was the best in the whole bunch." Corthell undertakes to lend to each of his prints an air of refinement, which alone lifts his work far above the mediocrity of these scores of busy little pictorialists who tinker values and solder tonalities and thereby consider themselves great artists.
Well, in December we will find out what stuff they are really made of, for then the Salon Club workers will make their debut before a New York audience at the First American Photographic Salon. This exhibition will be a memorable one in many respects. Let us glance over the prospectus to learn more about it.
In it we read that the management of the First American Salon at New York City cordially invites the cooperation of all artistic photographers in America and throughout the world, that it is the First Photographic Salon to be given in the Metropolis and the first of national scope under the control of a committee from all sections of the United States, that consequently an exhibition of the highest order is expected. There will be no favors to any and no discrimination against any. All work, whether from the famous or the comparatively unknown artist, will be exhibited equally, and the jury will not know the names of contributors until after the selection has been made.
No one "school" or "fad" will command precedence. The standard of judging will be the artistic quality of each print submitted.
On the page of "Conditions" we are furthermore instructed that the jury is composed of artists, who have been requested to act as judges of the artistic character of the work to be submitted (a list of excellent names is furnished) I know them all personally and by reputation, but how many of them will actually serve?) that "only those photographs which give distinct evidence of artistic feeling in subject and execution will be accepted"; and that "all amateur and professional photographers throughout the world are requested to forward work of the character described"; and that "there will be no invited work, and all prints forwarded will be examined by the jury."
I may add that the same exhibit will, later on, be shown at the Chicago Art Institute, the Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
All this sounds like open revolt! But far from being lawless, it is merely the expression of new laws. For each generation there is a different standard. Old forms and old perfections wither. Out of the old symbols the color fades day by day, and it is the younger generation's business to create new ones.
It nevertheless sounds like an open revolt. And there may be an opposition! A duel between Messrs Alfred Stieglitz and Curtis Bell would prove indeed a great attraction. There are none upon whose swordsmanship I trust more surely than that of these two gentlemen. It will stir up the stagnant waters of pictorial photography -- they surely need it -- and make us all more happy at the end.
