Anne Brigman 1869–1950 Self Portrait ca 1908 The San Francisco Call |
Anne Wardrope (Nott) Brigman, the eldest of eight children, was born into a family of British missionaries in the Nuuanu Valley above Honolulu, Hawaii. Her childhood was one of freedom. She fondly remembered herself as being a “young savage,” growing up amid mango trees, guava, papaya, and bougainvillea, Anne had no experience of the restraints that Victorian American society had on most women during that period.When she was sixteen years old her family moved back to the mainland and settled in Los Gatos, a small town in northern California, south of San Francisco . In 1894 she married Martin Brigman, a sea captain, whereupon Brigman accompanied her husband on several voyages to the South Seas, returning to Hawaii at least once.
Trained as a painter, Brigman turned to photography and became active in the bohemian art community in San Francisco in 1901. Soon she was exhibiting in local photographic salons, and within two years, Brigman had developed a reputation as a master of pictorial photography.[1] She came across Stieglitz's photography magazine entitled Camera Work and sent him an effusive letter about the photographs and the literary work within. That same year, Alfred Stieglitz invited her to join the Photo-Secessionists, an association of photographers founded in New York City in 1902 by Stieglitz and Edward Steichen that advocated the development and recognition of photography as fine art.
Anne Brigman Negative 1902, print 1914 Gelatin silver, toned or gelatin silver bromide 9 11/16 x 7 3/4 inches J. Paul Getty Museum |
In this photograph, the guardian angel figure, hand upraised as if in blessing, consoles the cowering woman within a protective stand of California western juniper trees. By obscuring their faces, the women portray archetypes rather than individuals. Trees tortured by lightning and twisted by the winds recur in Anne Brigman's work, symbolizing independence and an adaptation to life's adversity.
In order to achieve a sense of atmosphere that she could not find in nature that would be appropriate to the scene, Brigman altered her negative by hand, drawing and scratching lines onto the negative before printing. She created the halo above the figure's head at left and the sweep of lines meant to appear as a translucent, windblown garment on the figure at the right. [2]
Brigman was often the subject of her own photographs. Many of her photos were taken in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in carefully selected locations and featured elaborately staged poses. Her dramatic images of youthful, slender, hearty, unaffected women spending their time out in nature were Brigman's favored subjects, and she photographed them nude in the landscape of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Northern California. In order to achieve a sense of atmosphere that she could not find in nature that would be appropriate to the scene, Brigman altered her negative by hand, drawing and scratching lines onto the negative before printing. She created the halo above the figure's head at left and the sweep of lines meant to appear as a translucent, windblown garment on the figure at the right. [2]
Anne W. Brigman
The Bubble
ca. 1905
© Art Museum, Princeton, N.J./gift of Mrs. Raymond C. Collins.
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Anne Brigman Soul of the Blasted Pine ca. 1908 Photogravure 6 1/8 x 8 3/8 inches Yale Visual Resources Collection |
Anne BrigmanSelf-Portrait ca. n.d. Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe Archive |
Anne BrigmanThe Breeze n.d. Photograph, from a “paste-up” for Brigman’s book Songs of a Pagan Anne Brigman Papers |
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1. "Society Views Works of Art -- Photographer's Second Salon Proves Success - Sepias in Platinum Mingle With Bromides and Bichromates". The San Francisco Call. 1902-01-10. Retrieved 3/ 25/2013.
2. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Artists: Anne W. Brigman, http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=107700, Retrieved March 25, 2013.
3. Susan Ehrens (1995). Original A Poetic Vision: The Photographs of Anne Brigman. Santa Barbara Museum of Art. p. 23.
4. "Work of Oakland Artist Captures Coveted Honor - Wins Gold Medal for Lens Studies - Annie W. Brigman Given Honors for Exhibit at Alaska-Yukon Exposition". The San Francisco Call. 1909-11-11. Retrieved 3/25/2013.
5. Yale Archive Library, Intimate Circles: Women in the Arts, Anne Brigman, http://brbl-archive.library.yale.edu/exhibitions/awia/gallery/brigman.html, retrieved 3/26/2013.
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