_By_ EDWARD R. DICKSON
The Pictorial Photographers of America is an association having in mind
solely the development of the art of photography from a standpoint of
educational value. Its position is unique, since the worker is afforded
not only an opportunity to exhibit his pictures in various museums and art
galleries, but is made to feel that maintaining photographic standards and
studying the arts for breadth of view are of chief importance.
Some of the advantages which photography offers are worth restating. It
helps to draw one closer to nature and to seek fresh air. Through the
exercise and cultivation of choice, it teaches how to decorate the home,
to dress with taste, and to keep an alert eye and mind on the passing
events of the world. Because the Association knows that photography is
able to teach these things, it sought the aid of art museums and public
libraries to conduct photographic exhibitions so that children and adults
may not only see fine examples of the work of the camera in the hands of
artists, but be led thereby to appreciate more fully the value of
photography as an aid to interesting composition and a quickening of the
eye in realizing the beauty of sunlight and shadows which flit around us
much unrecognized at times. Succeeding in gaining the sympathetic
co-operation of seventeen museums, in the winter of 1917-18 the
Association collected, from many of the most important workers in this
country, more than two hundred prints, which were divided into two groups
and exhibited as follows:
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Milwaukee Art Institute, Art Institute of
Chicago, City Art Museum (St. Louis), Toledo Museum of Art, Detroit Museum
of Art, Cleveland Art Museum, Cincinnati Museum of Art, Morristown
Library, Newark Museum Association, New Britain (Conn.) Institute,
Worcester Art Museum, Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts, Guild of Allied Arts
(Buffalo), Grand Rapids Art Association, University of Oklahoma, New
Orleans Art Association.
There was also held in New York City an exhibition of the work of the New
England, New Jersey and Connecticut photographers, and among the immediate
activities of the Association will be the holding in New York of
exhibitions of the work of members of the Pacific Coast and other places,
so that there may be established a fuller understanding of the points of
view among the various pictorialists throughout the country.
The Association hopes to establish, in designated cities, pictorial
centers where photographs may always be seen, and centers for intercourse
and for exchange of views among workers. As a result of its plans, there
will soon be opened a branch of the Pictorial Photographers of America,
which will be called the Pacific Coast Chapter, embracing workers in the
following States: Oregon, California, Wyoming, Nevada, and Utah. Meetings
will be held monthly, and lectures and exhibitions arranged in
co-operation with the parent body in New York. As soon as this chapter
has begun active work, another will be opened in the New England and
Middle West States, modeled after the California chapter. In this way the
Association hopes to be of national service in the advancement of
photography on educational lines, and it asks the sympathy of the public
as well as that of every worker of the camera in America.
Among other of its plans are: honoring those who have given valued service
to photography; the formation of a library; the establishment of a home
headquarters; the distribution of knowledge tending toward the making of
better catalogues; the art of hanging pictures so that their individual
beauty may be enhanced; the application of the motion picture to pictorial
expression; the recommendation of books on the development of the
individual, as well as others relating to the study of contemporary arts,
so that, through an acquaintance with all these, there may be brought to
the student a new and an individual approach in his photographic work.
The Association holds monthly meetings at the National Arts Club, 119 East
19th Street, New York, where exhibitions and lectures are given.
Admission is free. The Association now publishes its first annual
“Pictorial Photography in America,” which comprises the work of important
pictorialists in this country, whether or not members of the Association.
And in following out so broad a plan the Association has demonstrated to
its friends that its main interests lie in the presentation of fine work,
little caring who the individual may be. As soon as the world has resumed
its normal stride, the Association will extend invitations for an
exhibition of foreign work to be shown in America. In turn, the
Association will be glad to send an exhibition of American work abroad to
those who desire to see, more intimately than we are able to do by the
process of reproduction, what American pictorialists are doing. In
another volume we hope to present the work of foreign pictorialists.
Plans are now being made whereby the original prints selected for this
Annual will be exhibited, under the direction of the American Federation
of Arts, in the galleries of many art museums throughout the country.
Herewith we list the names of the present officers and executive members
of the Association, as well as those who are members of the Council having
to do with pictorial activities in the different States. Membership in
the Association is open to men and women of good character and ambitious
intentions, including those who, though not photographers, are interested
in the development of the art.
CLARENCE H. WHITE, _President_
DR. A. D. CHAFFEE, _Vice-President_
GERTRUDE KASEBIER, _Hon. Vice-President_
PROF. CHARLES F. CHANDLER, _Hon. Vice-President_
DR. CHARLES H. JAEGER, _Treasurer._
EDWARD R. DICKSON, _Recording Secretary_
MARGARET WATKINS, _Corresponding Secretary_