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Even though i went to see this exhibit a week ago, I wanted to wait to write about it until i'd finished reading the companion book, Zaida Ben Yusuf: New York Portrait Photographer by Frank A. Goodyear III.
About a year ago or so, i discovered the photography of Miss Ben Yusuf while doing some research on her mother, Anna Ben Yusuf, author of the 1908 resource text on millinery techniques, Edwardian Hats. Zaida also worked as a milliner, both before and after she set up shop as a portrait photographer, writing magazine articles on "DIY" millinery techniques for magazines of the time and eventually accepting a leadership role in a milliners' trade organization. Ben Yusuf has been a role model of mine ever since--i am particularly drawn to women of earlier eras who blended craft and art as career fields and who were self-sufficient and independent.
At the time when i was avidly combing millinery sources for evidence of her writing, i discovered that portraiture historian Frank Goodyear had been doing his own inquiry into her work from the photography perspective. I wrote to him and he contacted me, and though we only spoke the once, it was so exciting to talk to another person--perhaps the only other person on earth at the time--who not only recognized her name but knew facts about her life and work. (Mr. Goodyear knew far more than i did, in fact, as her photographic career is much more extensively documented in publication than her millinery career.) It was so gratifying and I've been looking forward to Goodyear's exhibit and book ever since!
The exhibit opened in April and i decided to stop in DC to see it on my way up to NYC this summer. Mr. Goodyear has done an amazing job assembling her work from many disparate collections, though according to the companion book there are still loads of lost images she was known to have made. The book reads like a Who's Who of fin de siecle artistic, scientific, and political realms; Ben Yusuf really photographed a staggering number of successful people in her short photographic career (she only worked for maybe a decade or two as a portraiture photographer, bookending that with millinery endeavors). You can check out some of the portraits in the web exhibit online at the NPG website.
It's funny, in addition to portrait historians, i think costume designers and production specicialists are the folks who spend the most time really deeply analyzing portraiture--it's one of the primary sources of period research on the specifics of what people wore. As such, i'm used to looking more at the attire of the portrait subject than his/her face, and my experience of this exhibit and the entire National Portrait Gallery was informed by that. What an overload of excellent little details! If you're at all interested in historical costuming, the NPG is a great museum to wander through on a lazy afternoon (and, bonus, admission is free).
There are a number of other noteworthy exhibits there right now, from a focus on Kathryn Hepburn to "Recognize: Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture," which includes the paintings of Kehinde Wiley, whose work i'd read about and been interested in seeing for ages. Wiley creates huge larger-than-life-size portraits of black celebrities, layered over and backdropped with ornate floral and scrollwork patterns typical of like, Rococo textiles. I also really enjoyed "Ballyhoo: Posters as Portraiture", a collection that spans nearly two centuries of poster art and celebrity.
In reading Goodyear's companion volume, i realized that in working at the Public Theatre right now, i'm less than a block from Ben Yusuf's first 5th Ave studio location, just up from Union Square (which is the subway stop i take every morning). The book mentioned that she married late in life to a textile designer and possibly settled in Brooklyn--i have a vague notion that perhaps this summer i'll comb through a couple old Brooklyn cemeteries in search of her lost grave. We'll see if that happens. It'd make a nice weekend picnic afternoon.
Unrelated, being in NYC this summer reminds me every now and then of these little details that separate city living from rural or town life. Not the huge obvious things like 2934892384 more people and skyscrapers, but the stuff you tend to actually forget, like that your cell battery life is way shorter if you ride the subway regularly and it's forced to do a lot of time searching for service. Speaking of riding the subway, i need to head into work soon. I think i'll be going to a couple of exhibits this weekend and seeing at least one play, so maybe there will also be time to blog about that.
About a year ago or so, i discovered the photography of Miss Ben Yusuf while doing some research on her mother, Anna Ben Yusuf, author of the 1908 resource text on millinery techniques, Edwardian Hats. Zaida also worked as a milliner, both before and after she set up shop as a portrait photographer, writing magazine articles on "DIY" millinery techniques for magazines of the time and eventually accepting a leadership role in a milliners' trade organization. Ben Yusuf has been a role model of mine ever since--i am particularly drawn to women of earlier eras who blended craft and art as career fields and who were self-sufficient and independent.
At the time when i was avidly combing millinery sources for evidence of her writing, i discovered that portraiture historian Frank Goodyear had been doing his own inquiry into her work from the photography perspective. I wrote to him and he contacted me, and though we only spoke the once, it was so exciting to talk to another person--perhaps the only other person on earth at the time--who not only recognized her name but knew facts about her life and work. (Mr. Goodyear knew far more than i did, in fact, as her photographic career is much more extensively documented in publication than her millinery career.) It was so gratifying and I've been looking forward to Goodyear's exhibit and book ever since!
The exhibit opened in April and i decided to stop in DC to see it on my way up to NYC this summer. Mr. Goodyear has done an amazing job assembling her work from many disparate collections, though according to the companion book there are still loads of lost images she was known to have made. The book reads like a Who's Who of fin de siecle artistic, scientific, and political realms; Ben Yusuf really photographed a staggering number of successful people in her short photographic career (she only worked for maybe a decade or two as a portraiture photographer, bookending that with millinery endeavors). You can check out some of the portraits in the web exhibit online at the NPG website.
It's funny, in addition to portrait historians, i think costume designers and production specicialists are the folks who spend the most time really deeply analyzing portraiture--it's one of the primary sources of period research on the specifics of what people wore. As such, i'm used to looking more at the attire of the portrait subject than his/her face, and my experience of this exhibit and the entire National Portrait Gallery was informed by that. What an overload of excellent little details! If you're at all interested in historical costuming, the NPG is a great museum to wander through on a lazy afternoon (and, bonus, admission is free).
There are a number of other noteworthy exhibits there right now, from a focus on Kathryn Hepburn to "Recognize: Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture," which includes the paintings of Kehinde Wiley, whose work i'd read about and been interested in seeing for ages. Wiley creates huge larger-than-life-size portraits of black celebrities, layered over and backdropped with ornate floral and scrollwork patterns typical of like, Rococo textiles. I also really enjoyed "Ballyhoo: Posters as Portraiture", a collection that spans nearly two centuries of poster art and celebrity.
In reading Goodyear's companion volume, i realized that in working at the Public Theatre right now, i'm less than a block from Ben Yusuf's first 5th Ave studio location, just up from Union Square (which is the subway stop i take every morning). The book mentioned that she married late in life to a textile designer and possibly settled in Brooklyn--i have a vague notion that perhaps this summer i'll comb through a couple old Brooklyn cemeteries in search of her lost grave. We'll see if that happens. It'd make a nice weekend picnic afternoon.
Unrelated, being in NYC this summer reminds me every now and then of these little details that separate city living from rural or town life. Not the huge obvious things like 2934892384 more people and skyscrapers, but the stuff you tend to actually forget, like that your cell battery life is way shorter if you ride the subway regularly and it's forced to do a lot of time searching for service. Speaking of riding the subway, i need to head into work soon. I think i'll be going to a couple of exhibits this weekend and seeing at least one play, so maybe there will also be time to blog about that.
