29
ALLEN, FRANCES STEBBINS (1854–
1941) AND MARY ELECTA (1858–1941)
American photographers
The two sisters Frances and Mary Allen, from Deerfi eld
Massachusetts, took up photography in the 1880s after
their careers in teaching were cut short by the onset
of deafness. Their pictorial images earned them the
accolade from one reviewer in 1901 of being num-
bered amongst “the foremost women photographers in
America.”
Although the height of their success came in the early
years of the twentieth century, the sisters were exhibiting
and selling their work by the 1890s—Washington 1896,
Philadelphia 1900, Paris 1900, Chicago 1908—their
subjects ranging from romantic images of the period
buildings in their native Deerfi eld, to landscapes in the
emerging pictorialist tradition, and romanticised groups
of local people—especially children—at work and play,
their subjects often dressing up in period costumes.
Drawing inspiration from the works of contemporary
painters as well as photographers, the Allen sisters cre-
ated a fi ne body of rich platinum prints which has, until
very recently, been overlooked by historians.
The Springfi eld Daily Republican newspaper in 1901
reported that “The Misses Allen use their camera with
the same spirit with which a painter uses his brush, and
their sense of composition, of the dramatic moment, is
as eminent a qualifi cation for their art as for his.”
A major collection of the sisters’ delicate platinum
prints is held by the Memorial Hall Museum in Deer-
fi eld, Massachusetts.
John HannavyALMA-TADEMA, SIR LAWRENCE
(1836–1912)
English patron
Born Lorens, or Laurens, Alma Tadema in Holland,
Alma-Tadema as he became known in Britain, was one
of the most prolifi c and successful artists of his day. He
was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1899.
His huge output drew much of its inspiration from
classical themes, and his work was purchased and ex-
hibited widely.
He was not a photographer, and as far as can be
ascertained, he never took a photograph—but he used
photography extensively, having evolved, with Belgian
photographer Joseph Dupont, a novel application for
the medium. Alma-Tadema, concerned about the tonal
relationships within his painting, collaborated with
Dupont in making photographs of partially completed
canvases. Alma-Tadema believed that the reduction of
the full colour of the painting to the sepia hues of theing is to be found in the plain and ordinary image; in the
mass of photographic documents and portraits. Images
of this type may seem too immediate to be considered
allegorically, but in other ways they directly relate to
some of the classic features of the allegorical mode. Like
allegory, these images are repeatedly described as ‘me-
chanical,’ whereas their counterpart, the staged picture,
is usually viewed as an ‘organic’ composition (that is to
say, the staged picture might be viewed as a symbol).
Futhermore, it is evident that the central allegorical
categories of time and death circulate around ordinary
record photographs: images produced then, but, when
looked at now, frequently induce a typically allegorical
moment of melancholic refl ection on the passing of time
and the all-too transitory character of life.
Steve EdwardsSee also: Rejlander, Oscar Gustav; Cameron, Julia
Margaret; Price, William Lake; Talbot, William Henry
Fox; Daguerre, Louis-Jacques-Mandé; and Bayard,
Hippolyte.
Further Reading
Armstrong, Carol. Scenes in a Library: Reading the Photograph
in the Book, 1843–1875. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press,
1998.
Batchen, Geoffrey. Burning with Desire: the Conception of Pho-
tography. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1997.
Baudelaire, Charles. ‘Photography’ (1859), Beaumont Newhall,
Photography: Essays & Images. London: Secker & Warburg,
1980, 112–13.
Benjamin, Walter. The Origin of German Tragic Drama. London:
Verso, 1985.
Crump, James. ‘Suffering the Ideal,’ F. Holland Day. Suffering the
Ideal. Santa Fe, NM: Twin Palms Publishers, 1995, 7–32.
Day, Gail. ‘Allegory: Between Deconstruction and Dialectics,’
Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1999, 103–18.
Edwards, Steve. The Making of English Photography, Allego-
ries. University Park, Penna.: Penn State University Press,
2006.
Hunt, Robert. ‘Photographic Exhibitions,’ Art-Journal, February,
1856, 49–50.
Orton, Lisa Joyce and Fred. ‘“Always Elsewhere”: An Introduc-
tion to the Art of Jeff Wall (A Ventriloquist at a Birthday Party
in October, 1947),’ Jeff Wall: Photographs. Cologne: Verlag
der Buchandlung Walter König, 2003.
de Man, Paul. ‘The Rhetoric of Temporality,’ Blindness and
Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism.
London: Routledge, 1989, 187–228.
Quilligan, Maureen. The Language of Allegory. Defi ning the
Genre. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979.
Richon, Olivier. Allegories. London: Salvo, 2000.
Weaver, Mike. ‘Henry Fox Talbot: Conversation Pieces,’ Mike
Weaver ed., British Photography in the Nineteenth Century:
the Fine Art Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1989, 11–23.
——. ‘Diogenes with a Camera,’ Mike Weaver ed., Henry Fox
Talbot: Selected Texts & Bibliography. Oxford: Clio Press,
1992, 1–25.