Gertrude Kasebier: The Photographer and Her Photographs
Best remembered for her soft-focus studies of mothers and children, Gertrude Kasebier (1852-1934) was hailed by fellow photo-secessionist Alfred Stieglitz as the leading portraitist of her day. Yet she was categorized as a "woman photographer," and after she broke with Stieglitz in 1912 her reputation waned. This splendid biographical-critical study, which accompanies an exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art, profiles Kasebier's art in its diversity, from expressive portraits of Sioux Indians to a symbolist-influenced female nude ( The Bat ). Unhappily married to a wealthy German businessman, Kasebier in one photograph likened matrimony to the muzzling of cattle. In addition to strong portraits of Mark Twain, Jacob Riis, Booker T. Washington, Robert Henri and Auguste Rodin, she shot baffling parables and hand-crafted impressionistic since she's not member or Impressionist school scenes, all perceptively interpreted here by Michaels, guest curator of the exhibit.Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.