Fred Holland Day (23 July 1864—23 November 1933), known professionally as F. Holland Day, was an American photographer and publisher. He was prominent in literary and photography circles in the late nineteenth century and was a leading

Pictorialist Pictorialism is an international style and aesthetic movement that dominated photography during the later 19th and early 20th centuries. There is no standard definition of the term, but in general it refers to a style in which the photographer ha ...

. He was an early and vocal advocate for accepting photography as a fine art.

Life

Fred Holland Day was the son of a wealthy

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

merchant, and was a man of independent means for all his life. He was a descendant of

Ralph Day Ralph Carrette Day (November 24, 1898 – May 21, 1976) was mayor of Toronto, Ontario from 1938 to 1940. He was also an accomplished funeral director, owning his own funeral home. He also served as chairman of the Toronto Transit Commissio ...

of Dedham. Day's life and works were controversial because he took an unconventional approach to religious subjects and often photographed male nudes. His emphasis on the classical ideal sometimes bordered on

homoeroticism Homoeroticism is sexual attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female. The concept differs from the concept of homosexuality: it refers specifically to the desire itself, which can be temporary, whereas "homose ...

. According to Pam Roberts, "Day never married and his sexual orientation, whilst it is widely assumed that he was homosexual, because of his interests, his photographic subject matter, his general flamboyant demeanor, was, like much else about him, a very private matter." Day spent much time among poor immigrant children in Boston, tutoring them in reading and mentoring them. One in particular, the 13-year-old Lebanese immigrant

Kahlil Gibran Gibran Khalil Gibran ( ar, جُبْرَان خَلِيل جُبْرَان, , , or , ; January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931), usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran (pronounced ), was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist ...

, went on to fame as the author of '' The Prophet''. Day co-founded and self-financed the publishing firm of Copeland and Day, which from 1893 through 1899 published about a hundred titles. The firm was influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He w ...

Kelmscott Press The Kelmscott Press, founded by William Morris and Emery Walker, published fifty-three books in sixty-six volumes between 1891 and 1898. Each book was designed and ornamented by Morris and printed by hand in limited editions of around 300. Many ...

. The firm was the American publisher of

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

's '' Salomé'', illustrated by

Aubrey Beardsley Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (21 August 187216 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the ...

; ''

The Yellow Book ''The Yellow Book'' was a British quarterly literary periodical that was published in London from 1894 to 1897. It was published at The Bodley Head Publishing House by Elkin Mathews and John Lane, and later by John Lane alone, and edited by th ...

'', a periodical also illustrated by Beardsley; and ''

The Black Riders and Other Lines ''The Black Riders and Other Lines'' is a book of poetry written by American author Stephen Crane (1871–1900). It was first published in 1895 by Copeland & Day. Composition and publication history In the winter of 1893, Crane borrowed a su ...

'' by

Stephen Crane Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871 – June 5, 1900) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism an ...

. He is known to have traveled.

Beaumont Newhall Beaumont Newhall (June 22, 1908 – February 26, 1993) was an American curator, art historian, writer, photographer, and the second director of the George Eastman Museum. His book ''The History of Photography'' remains one of the most signifi ...

states that he visited

Algiers Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques d ...

, possibly as a result of reading Wilde and Gide. There is a photographic ''Portrait of F. Holland Day in Arab Costume, 1901'' by

Frederick H. Evans Frederick H. Evans (26 June 1853 – 24 June 1943) was an English photographer, best known for his images of architectural subjects, such as English and French cathedrals. Evans was born and died in London. He began his career as a bookseller, ...

. Day was a friend of Louise Imogen Guiney and

Ralph Adams Cram Ralph Adams Cram (December 16, 1863 – September 22, 1942) was a prolific and influential American architect of collegiate and ecclesiastical buildings, often in the Gothic Revival style. Cram & Ferguson and Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson are partne ...

, and a member of social clubs, such as the

Visionists The Visionists were an informal social club based in Boston, Massachusetts in the late 19th century, focused on the members' shared interests in artists, writers, and cultural movements. Documented members included: * Writer/architect Ralph Adams ...

, formed around shared interests in arts and literature. He was a major patron of

. He was also a lifelong bibliophile and collector. Most notable among his collections was his world-class collection on the poet

John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...

Work

At the turn of the century, his influence and reputation as a photographer rivaled that of

Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...

, who later eclipsed him. The high point of Day's photographic career was probably his organization of an exhibition of photographs at the

Royal Photographic Society The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, commonly known as the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), is one of the world's oldest photographic societies. It was founded in London, England, in 1853 as the Photographic Society of London with ...

in 1900. ''New School of American Photography'' presented 375 photographs by 42 photographers, 103 of them by Day, and evoked both high praise and vitriolic scorn from critics. The populist ''Photographic News'' saw it as the result "of a diseased imagination, of which much has been fostered by the ravings of a few lunatics ... unacademic ... and eccentric". Day belonged to the

pictorialist Pictorialism is an international style and aesthetic movement that dominated photography during the later 19th and early 20th centuries. There is no standard definition of the term, but in general it refers to a style in which the photographer ha ...

movement which regarded photography as a fine art and which often included

symbolist Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realis ...

imagery. The

Photo-Secession The Photo-Secession was an early 20th century movement that promoted photography as a fine art in general and photographic pictorialism in particular. A group of photographers, led by Alfred Stieglitz and F. Holland Day in the early 20th century ...

ists invited him to join, but he declined the offer. As was common at the time, his photographs allude to

classical antiquity Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...

in manner, composition and often in theme. From 1896 through 1898 Day experimented with Christian themes, using himself as a model for Jesus. Neighbors in

Norwood, Massachusetts Norwood is a town and census-designated place in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Norwood is part of the Greater Boston area. As of the 2020 census, the population was 31,611. The town was named after Norwood, England. Norwood is ...

, assisted him in an outdoor photographic re-enactment of the crucifixion of Jesus. This culminated in his series of self-photographs, ''The Seven Last Words,'' depicting the seven last words of Christ. He often made only a single print from a negative. He used only the platinum process, being unsatisfied with any other, and lost interest in photography when platinum became unobtainable following the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...

Legacy

Day became all but forgotten for a number of reasons. He was eclipsed by his rival, Stieglitz. The pictorial and symbolist photographic style went out of fashion in the face of the radical shift towards early

modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

in the art world. Two thousand of his prints and negatives were lost in a 1904 fire. The few hundred that survived were sent to the Royal Photographic Society in the 1930s. Since the 1990s, Day's works have been included in major exhibitions by museum curators, notably in the solo Day retrospective at the

Boston Museum of Fine Arts The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

in 2000-2001 and similar shows at the

in England and the

Fuller Craft Museum Fuller Craft Museum is an arts and crafts museum in the city of Brockton, Massachusetts, 25 miles south of Boston. It receives 20,000 visitors a year. It contains contemporary craft-based art of many different genres and origins. It is the only ...

. Art historians are once again taking an interest in Day, and there are now significant academic texts on Day's homoerotic portraiture, and its similarities to the work of

Walter Pater Walter Horatio Pater (4 August 1839 – 30 July 1894) was an English essayist, art critic and literary critic, and fiction writer, regarded as one of the great stylists. His first and most often reprinted book, ''Studies in the History of the Re ...

and

Thomas Eakins Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists. For the length ...

. Day's house at 93 Day Street in Norwood, Massachusetts, is now the F. Holland Day House & Norwood History Museum. It also serves as the headquarters of the Norwood Historical Society.

References

External links

The F. Holland Day Historic House: About Fred Holland Day

{{DEFAULTSORT:Day, F. Holland 1864 births 1933 deaths Photographers from Massachusetts Artists from Boston Gay artists People from Norwood, Massachusetts 19th century in Boston 19th-century American photographers 20th-century American photographers Pictorialists

Life

Work

Legacy

Further reading

See also

References

External links