Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr.
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Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr. (August 7, 1862 – April 25, 1932)Turner Browne and Elaine Partnow, ''MacMillan Biographical Encyclopedia of Photographic Artists and Innovators'' (New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1983), pp. 172-173. was an American
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 ...
photographer, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was one of the first Americans (along with
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 k ...
) to be admitted to the Linked Ring, and his photographs won dozens of medals at exhibitions around the world in the 1890s and early 1900s. He was famous among his contemporaries for his portraits of high-society women, most notably model and singer
Evelyn Nesbit Florence Evelyn Nesbit (December 25, 1884 or 1885 – January 17, 1967) was an American model (person), artists' model, chorus girl, and actress. She is best known for her career in New York City, as well as her husband, railroad scion Har ...
. Eickemeyer's best-known photographs are now part of the collections of the
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...
.


Life

Eickemeyer was born in
Yonkers, New York Yonkers () is the List of municipalities in New York, third-most populous city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and the most-populous City (New York), city in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County. A centrally locate ...
, in 1862. Though widely travelled, he would live in Yonkers his entire life. Eickemeyer's father had fled to New York in the early 1850s following political upheavals in his native
Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...
, and became a noted inventor.James Terry White,
Rudolf Eickemeyer
" ''The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography'', Vol. 1 (New York: James T. White and Company, 1898), p. 184.
His firm, Osterheld and Eickemeyer, invented a hat-blocking machine that revolutionized the hat industry, and made a number of advancements in electrical lighting. The younger Eickemeyer joined his father's firm as a draftsman in 1879. Eickemeyer first became interested in photography as a means to help document his father's inventions. He purchased his first camera, an "abnormally thick" Platyscope B, on February 2, 1884, and took his first photograph, an
albumen print Egg white is the clear liquid (also called the albumen or the glair/glaire) contained within an egg. In chickens, it is formed from the layers of secretions of the anterior section of the hen's oviduct during the passage of the egg. It forms aro ...
of his sister, the following day. Immediately drawn to the camera's artistic potential, Eickemeyer considered pursuing a career as a photographer, but his father disapproved, so he continued working for his father's firm.Mary Jean Madigan,
Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr.: A Biographical Appreciation
" Photography of Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr.: Exhibition Hudson River Museum, March 12 - April 30, 1972 (exhibition catalog).
Eickemeyer won 11 medals at the Yonkers Photo Club's Lantern Slide Exhibition in October 1890, and over the subsequent decade, he collected over a hundred medals at exhibitions and salons around the world. After his father's death in 1895, he left his father's firm and joined the Carbon Studio in Manhattan, which specialized in portraits, and gained a reputation for photographs of high-society women.Carolyn Ureña,

" National Museum of American History website, 1 September 2010. Retrieved: 6 March 2012.
That year, he and Alfred Stieglitz became the first Americans admitted to the English pictorialist society, the Linked Ring. While Eickemeyer's work appeared in Stieglitz's ''
Camera Notes ''Camera Notes'' was a photographic journal published by the Camera Club of New York from 1897 to 1903. It was edited for most of that time by photographer Alfred Stieglitz and was considered the most significant American photography journal of ...
'', he was unimpressed with the rise of the Stieglitz-led
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 centur ...
early in the following century. He was one of four Links who never joined the Photo-Secession, the others being
F. Holland Day Fred Holland Day (July 23, 1864 – November 23, 1933) was an American photographer and publisher. He was prominent in literary and photography circles in the late nineteenth century and was a leading Pictorialist. He was an early and vocal ...
, Margaret Russell Foster, and C. Yarnall Abbott.Richard Whelan, ''Alfred Stieglitz: A Biography'' (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995), p. 590n. In 1900, Eickemeyer joined the New York Camera Club, and exhibited 154 frames in his first one-man show at the club. That same year, he published his first book, ''Down South'', and was appointed art manager of the Campbell Art Studio on
Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue runs south from 143rd Street (Manhattan), West 143rd Street in Harlem to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The se ...
, with which he would remain intermittently until 1915. It was while at Campbell that Eickemeyer conducted his famous shoot of New York model Evelyn Nesbit.Kristin Hanneman, "Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr.: Pictorialist and Photographic Illustrator," Photography at Suite101.com, 26 March 2010. Retrieved: 6 March 2012. Eickemeyer was awarded the gold medal for photography at the
St. Louis World's Fair The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the St. Louis World's Fair, was an international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, from April 30 to December 1, 1904. Local, state, and federal funds totaling $15 mill ...
in 1904. The following year, he purchased half of the photographic firm, Davis and Stanford (renamed Davis and Eickemeyer), which operated out of a studio at 246 Fifth Avenue. In 1911, Eickemeyer was commissioned by
William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper publisher and politician who developed the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His extravagant methods of yellow jou ...
to photograph American wives of British peerage as part of the coronation ceremonies of King
George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until Death and state funeral of George V, his death in 1936. George w ...
. Eickemeyer hosted a restropective of his work at the Anderson Galleries in New York in 1922, and made his last submissions to the London Salon in 1926. In 1929, he donated most of his best-known photographs to the Smithsonian Institution. The following year, he served as a judge in Kodak's international photography competition alongside
Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...
,
John J. Pershing General of the Armies John Joseph Pershing (September 13, 1860 – July 15, 1948), nicknamed "Black Jack", was an American army general, educator, and founder of the Pershing Rifles. He served as the commander of the American Expeditionary For ...
,
Richard E. Byrd Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr. (October 25, 1888 – March 11, 1957) was an American naval officer, and pioneering aviator, polar explorer, and organizer of polar logistics. Aircraft flights in which he served as a navigator and expedition leader cr ...
, and
Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...
. He died at St. John's Hospital in Yonkers in 1932. The
Hudson River Museum The Hudson River Museum, located in Trevor Park in Yonkers, New York, is the largest museum in Westchester County, and features the only public planetarium in the county. While often considered an art museum due to its extensive collection of Hu ...
in Yonkers has a collection of over 200 examples of Eickemeyer's photography.


Works

As a pictorialist, Eickemeyer believed photographs were works of art. However, he believed in producing straightforward images and using natural elements to produce artistic effects instead of using photographic techniques (such as soft focus) to imitate traditional art.Sidney Allen,
Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr.: An Appreciation
" ''Photo-Era'', Vol. 15, No. 3 (September 1905), pp. 79-82.
He was described by photography critic Sidney Allen as the "most versatile" pictorialist of his time, and excelled in both landscapes and portraits. In 1893, Eickemeyer's photographs, ''Lily Gatherer'' and ''As She Comes Down the Stairs'' (for which his wife, Isabelle, posed) won silver medals at the Joint Annual Exhibition in Philadelphia, and the latter won the gold medal at the Hamburg International Exhibition. In 1894, Eickemeyer won sixteen medals in ten international exhibitions, including the
Royal Photographic Society The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, commonly known as the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), is the world's oldest photographic society having been in continuous existence since 1853. It was founded in London, England, in 1853 as th ...
's Albert Medal for his ''Sweet Home''. The following year, he won the Viceroy Gold Medal at the International Exhibition in
Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...
for his photograph, ''Kitten's Breakfast''. Photographer Roland Rood described Eickemeyer's portraiture photographs of women as "unexcelled, frequently unequaled." His 1901 shoot of New York model Evelyn Nesbit is arguably his best-known portrait work, and included a shot of Nesbit clad in a
kimono The is a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan. The kimono is a wrapped-front garment with square sleeves and a rectangular body, and is worn Garment collars in hanfu#Youren (right lapel), left side wrapped over ri ...
and curled up on a bear-skin rug. Other well-known women photographed by Eickemeyer include opera singer
Mary Garden Mary Garden (20 February 1874 – 3 January 1967) was a Scottish-American operatic lyric soprano, then mezzo-soprano, with a substantial career in France and America in the first third of the 20th century. She spent the latter part of her chil ...
and actress
Lillian Russell Lillian Russell (born Helen Louise Leonard; December 4, 1860 or 1861 – June 6, 1922) was an American actress and singer. She became one of the most famous actresses and singers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, praised for her beaut ...
. Eickemeyer published three photographic books: ''Down South'' (1900), ''The Old Farm'' (1901), and ''Winter'' (1903). ''Down South'' documents the lives of African American sharecroppers on an Alabama plantation, using photographs taken by Eickemeyer during various trips to Alabama during the 1890s. ''The Old Farm'' is a collection of rural images, and ''Winter'' is a collection of artistic winter images accompanied by quotes from famous authors. Eickemeyer also provided photographic illustration for books by several other authors, including ''In and Out of the Nursery'' (1900), a collection of poems written by his sister, Eva.


Bibliography

*''In and Out of the Nursery'' (1900) (written by Eva Rowland, illustrated by Eickemeyer) *''Down South'' (1900) *''The Old Farm'' (1901) *''Winter'' (1903) *''Nature and Culture'' (1904) (written by
Hamilton Wright Mabie Hamilton Wright Mabie, A.M., L.H.D., LL.D. (December 13, 1846 – December 31, 1916) was an American essayist, editor, critic, and lecturer. Biography Hamilton Wright Mabie was born at Cold Spring, New York on December 13, 1846. He was the youn ...
, illustrated by Eickemeyer) *''In the Open'' (1911) (written by Stanton Davis Kirkham, illustrated by Eickemeyer)


Gallery

Image:Eickemeyer nesbit.jpg,
Evelyn Nesbit Florence Evelyn Nesbit (December 25, 1884 or 1885 – January 17, 1967) was an American model (person), artists' model, chorus girl, and actress. She is best known for her career in New York City, as well as her husband, railroad scion Har ...
Image:Eickemeyer 1898 vesper bells.jpg, ''Vesper Bells'' File:Mary Garden in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande 2.jpg,
Mary Garden Mary Garden (20 February 1874 – 3 January 1967) was a Scottish-American operatic lyric soprano, then mezzo-soprano, with a substantial career in France and America in the first third of the 20th century. She spent the latter part of her chil ...
as Mélisande Image:Uncle-essick-reickemeyer.jpg, ''Uncle Essick'' File:(Man praying over meal) by Rudolf Eickemeyer.jpg, Man praying over meal


References


External links


Rudolf Eickemeyer
– Luminous-Lint {{DEFAULTSORT:Eickemeyer, Rudolf 1862 births 1932 deaths Pictorialists Photographers from New York (state) Artists from Yonkers, New York American people of German descent 19th-century American photographers 20th-century American photographers