Charles DeForest Fredricks (December 11, 1823 – May 25, 1894) was an American

photographer A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographe ...

Biography

Charles D. Fredricks was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

on December 11, 1823. He learned the art of the

daguerreotype Daguerreotype (; french: daguerréotype) was the first publicly available photographic process; it was widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. "Daguerreotype" also refers to an image created through this process. Invented by Louis Daguerre an ...

from

Jeremiah Gurney Jeremiah Gurney (October 17, 1812 – April 21, 1895), was an American daguerreotype photographer operating in New York. Biography Gurney worked in the jewelry trade in Saratoga, New York, but learned about the daguerreotype from Samuel M ...

in New York, while he worked as a casemaker for Edward Anthony. In 1843, at the suggestion of his brother, Fredricks sailed for Angostura, today

Ciudad Bolívar Ciudad Bolívar (; Spanish for "Bolivar City"), formerly known as Angostura and St. Thomas de Guyana, is the capital of Venezuela's southeastern Bolívar, Venezuela, Bolívar State. It lies at the spot where the Orinoco River narrows to about ...

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. His business took him to

Pará Pará is a Federative units of Brazil, state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins (state), Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas (Brazilian state) ...

Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, , ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative_units_of_Brazil#List, fifth-most-populous state and the List of Brazilian st ...

Montevideo Montevideo () is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

. He enjoyed great success in South America, remaining there until some time in the early 1850s. Following a brief period in

Charleston, South Carolina Charleston is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston metropolitan area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint o ...

, Fredricks moved to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

in 1853. Here he became the first photographer to create life-sized portraits, which artists (like

Jules-Émile Saintin Jules-Émile Saintin (14 August 1829 – 13 July 1894) was a neoclassic French painter. Biography He was born in Lemé (France). Jules Émile Saintin was a pupil of Michel Martin Drolling and François-Édouard Picot at the Ecole des Beaux-Art ...

) were hired to color using

pastel A pastel () is an art medium in a variety of forms including a stick, a square a pebble or a pan of color; though other forms are possible; they consist of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those use ...

. On his return to New York City, he rejoined Jeremiah Gurney, though it is not clear whether he was initially a partner or an employee. By 1854, he had developed an early process for enlarging photographs. His partnership with Gurney ended in 1855. During the latter half of the decade he operated a studio in

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

. Here he received awards for his photographic oil colors and watercolors. During the 1860s he operated a studio on Broadway that was noted for its cartes de visites. In the early 1860s, Charles Fredricks personally photographed John Wilkes Booth (the assassin of President Lincoln) on several occasions at his studio. He retired from photography in 1889 and died in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.

External links

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Charles DeForest Fredricks
a
Historic Camera
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fredricks, Charles 1823 births 1894 deaths 19th-century American photographers Photographers from New York City