Tag Archives: Tacoma Art Museum

Exhibitions on View: ‘Captive Light: The Life and Photography of Ella E. McBride’

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Ella McBride, Untitled (self-portrait with camera shadow), circa 1921. Gelatin silver print, 9¾ × 7⅜ inches. University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, Janet Anderson Collection UW38940.

We are delighted to distribute the catalog, Captive Light: The Life and Photography of Ella E. McBride, to accompany the exhibition at the Tacoma Art Museum. The exhibition is on view through July 22, 2018.

Internationally acclaimed fine-art photographer Ella McBride (1862–1965) played an important role in the Northwest’s photography community and served as a key figure in the national and international pictorialist photography movements. Despite her many accomplishments, which included managing the photography studio of Edward S. Curtis and being an early member of the Seattle Camera Club, McBride is little known today. Captive Light: The Life and Photography of Ella E. McBride reconsiders her career and the larger pictorialist movement in the Northwest.

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Edward S. Curtis, Untitled, 1897. A party of Mazamas on the summit of Pinnacle Peak. Mount Rainier 1897 Collection, Mazamas Library and Historical Collections, VM1993-016 print03. [McBride is the woman in the center in the striped shirt, bow tie, and high crowned hat. Curtis is to her left, holding a camera, wearing glasses and a white neckerchief.]

An avid mountain climber, McBride was a member of the Mazamas, a Portland, Oregon mountaineering organization. She met Edward S. Curtis in 1897 when he was leading an ascent of Mt. Rainier. They became friends and Curtis convinced her to leave her teaching position to relocate to Seattle and assist him in his studio. She accepted, and by 1907, she was the manager of his studio. In 1916, she opened her own commercial studio, which she operated for more than thirty years.

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Ella McBride, ‘A Shirley Poppy,’ 1925. Gelatin silver print on Textura tissue, 9½ × 7¼ inches. Private collection. Photo © TAM, photo by Lou Cuevas. [‘A Shirley Poppy’ was shown in nineteen national and international salons.]

McBride embraced the painterly qualities of Pictorialist photography enthusiastically. In 1921, she participated in her first exhibition. During the 1920s, she was listed as one of the most exhibited Pictorialist photographers in the world. She was a prominent member of the Seattle Camera Club (active 1924–1929). She also worked as an advocate for the environment and cofounded the Seattle branch of the Soroptimist Club, an organization for business and professional women.

Unfortunately, her artistic ambitions were cut short by the realities of the Great Depression. Most of McBride’s photographs and negatives have been destroyed, but you can see some of her studio photos here.

Captive Light: The Life and Photography of Ella E. McBride surveys McBride’s development as an artist and her role in Washington’s early photography community through a selection of over sixty of her images of flowers, still lifes, portraits, and landscapes. This exhibition was organized by Tacoma Art Museum and is part of the museum’s Northwest Perspective Series. 

All images photo © TAM.

 

New in Art History and Visual Culture for CAA 2016

From February 3-6, we will be at the annual meeting of the College Art Association in Washington, DC. UW Press Advancement and Grants Manager Beth Fuget will be representing the Press, unveiling several new books, and meeting with partners to discuss our Mellon Foundation-funded collaboration, the Art History Publication Initiative.

Here is a taste of some recent and forthcoming titles in art history and visual culture we’ll be featuring at the conference, but be sure to stop by our booth (#322) to see our full slate of books. Follow along on social media with #caa2016.

Art History Publication Initiative Books

New and Recent Books

“Image Problems” by Robert DiCaroli
“Making Strange” edited by Saloni Mathur and Miwon Kwon (Fowler Museum at UCLA)
“Art AIDS America” by Jonathan David Katz and Rock Hushka (Tacoma Art Museum)
“Seeing Nature” by Brian J. Ferriso, et al. (Portland Art Museum, Oregon)
“Time and Place Are Nonsense” by Tom Vick (Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery)
“Gombrich among the Egyptians and Other Essays in the History of Art” by Robert Bagley
“The Photograph and Australia” by Judy Annear (Art Gallery of New South Wales)
“In the Spirit of the Ancestors” edited by Robin K. Wright and Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse

Forthcoming Books

Bhupen Khakhar: You Can’t Please All
Edited by Chris DeDercon and Nada Raza
Forthcoming June 2016
Published with Tate Publishing

This publication presents a fresh take on Bhupen Khakhar’s artistic, social, and spiritual interests. With personal and touching contributions by those who knew him, this richly illustrated book is an essential reference to one of the most compelling and unique voices in 20th century art, as well as a significant contribution to the field of international modernism.

Endeavouring Banks: Exploring Collections from the Endeavour Voyage 1768–1771
By Neil Chambers
With Contributions by Sir David Attenborough, John Gascoigne, Jeremy Coote, Andrew Cook, and Anna Agnarsdottir
Forthcoming Spring 2016
Published with Paul Holberton Publishing

The objects featured in this book tell the story of the Endeavour voyage and its impact ahead of the 250th anniversary of this seminal mission’s launch. The surviving illustrations are the most important body of images produced since Europeans entered this region, matching the truly historic value of the plant specimens and artifacts that will be seen alongside them.

Africa in the Market
Edited by Silvia Forni and Christopher Steiner
Forthcoming Spring 2016
Distributed for Royal Ontario Museum

The collection contains a wide range of mostly 20th century pieces that illustrate the creative achievements and cultural meanings of art objects produced and collected at a time of great international expansion of the market for African art. The objects are framed and interpreted within academic essays that highlight the significant role that African makers and dealers have played in shaping Western understanding of African art.

Chicana/o Art since the Sixties: From Errata to Remix
By Karen Mary Davalos
Forthcoming Spring 2016
Distributed for UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press

Davalos combines decolonial theory with extensive archival and field research to offer a new critical perspective on Chicana/o art. Using Los Angeles as a case study, she presents her most ambitious project to date in this examination of fifty years of Chicana/o art production in a major urban area.