The Association's Work and Aim

By Edward R. Dickson

The Pictorial Photographers of America is an association having in mind solely the development of the art of photography from a standpoint of educational value. Its position is unique, since the worker is afforded not only an opportunity to exhibit his pictures in various museums and art galleries, but is made to feel that maintaining photographic standards and studying the arts for breadth of view are of chief importance.

Some of the advantages which photography offers are worth restating. It helps to draw one closer to nature and to seek fresh air. Through the exercise and cultivation of choice, it teaches how to decorate the home, to dress with taste, and to keep an alert eye and mind on the passing events of the world. Because the Association knows that photography is able to teach these things, it sought the aid of art museums and public libraries to conduct photographic exhibitions so that children and adults may not only see fine examples of the work of the camera in the hands of artists, but be led thereby to appreciate more fully the value of photography as an aid to interesting composition and a quickening of the eye in realizing the beauty of sunlight and shadows which flit around us much unrecognized at times. Succeeding in gaining the sympathetic co-operation of seventeen museums, in the winter of 1917-18 the Association collected, from many of the most important workers in this country, more than two hundred prints, which were divided into two groups and exhibited as follows:

Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Milwaukee Art Institute, Art Institute of Chicago, City Art Museum (St. Louis), Toledo Museum of Art, Detroit Museum of Art, Cleveland Art Museum, Cincinnati Museum of Art, Morristown Library, Newark Museum Association, New Britain (Conn.) Institute, Worcester Art Museum, Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts, Guild of Allied Arts (Buffalo), Grand Rapids Art Association, University of Oklahoma, New Orleans Art Association.

There was also held in New York City an exhibition of the work of the New England, New Jersey and Connecticut photographers, and among the immediate activities of the Association will be the holding in New York of exhibitions of the work of members of the Pacific Coast and other places, so that there may be established a fuller understanding of the points of view among the various pictorialists throughout the country.

The Association hopes to establish, in designated cities, pictorial centers where photographs may always be seen, and centers for intercourse and for exchange of views among workers. As a result of its plans, there will soon be opened a branch of the Pictorial Photographers of America, which will be called the Pacific Coast [pg 7] Chapter, embracing workers in the following States: Oregon, California, Wyoming, Nevada, and Utah. Meetings will be held monthly, and lectures and exhibitions arranged in co-operation with the parent body in New York. As soon as this chapter has begun active work, another will be opened in the New England and Middle West States, modeled after the California chapter. In this way the Association hopes to be of national service in the advancement of photography on educational lines, and it asks the sympathy of the public as well as that of every worker of the camera in America.

Among other of its plans are: honoring those who have given valued service to photography; the formation of a library; the establishment of a home headquarters; the distribution of knowledge tending toward the making of better catalogues; the art of hanging pictures so that their individual beauty may be enhanced; the application of the motion picture to pictorial expression; the recommendation of books on the development of the individual, as well as others relating to the study of contemporary arts, so that, through an acquaintance with all these, there may be brought to the student a new and an individual approach in his photographic work.

The Association holds monthly meetings at the National Arts Club, 119 East 19th Street, New York, where exhibitions and lectures are given. Admission is free. The Association now publishes its first annual “Pictorial Photography in America,” which comprises the work of important pictorialists in this country, whether or not members of the Association. And in following out so broad a plan the Association has demonstrated to its friends that its main interests lie in the presentation of fine work, little caring who the individual may be. As soon as the world has resumed its normal stride, the Association will extend invitations for an exhibition of foreign work to be shown in America. In turn, the Association will be glad to send an exhibition of American work abroad to those who desire to see, more intimately than we are able to do by the process of reproduction, what American pictorialists are doing. In another volume we hope to present the work of foreign pictorialists.

Plans are now being made whereby the original prints selected for this Annual will be exhibited, under the direction of the American Federation of Arts, in the galleries of many art museums throughout the country.

Herewith we list the names of the present officers and executive members of the Association, as well as those who are members of the Council having to do with pictorial activities in the different States. Membership in the Association is open to men and women of good character and ambitious intentions, including those who, though not photographers, are interested in the development of the art.

CLARENCE H. WHITE, President

Dr. A. D. Chaffee, Vice-President

Gertrude Kasebier, Hon. Vice-President

Prof. Charles F. Chandler, Hon. Vice-President

Dr. Charles H. Jaeger, Treasurer.

Edward R. Dickson, Recording Secretary

Margaret Watkins, Corresponding Secretary

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EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Walter L. Ehrich

Ray Greenleaf

Bernard S. Horne

Charles J. Martin

Henry Hoyt Moore

Dr. D. J. Ruzicka

W. G. Shields

Adele C. Shreve

COUNCIL

Arizona

Forman G. Hanna

California

John Paul Edwards

Louis Fleckenstein

Connecticut

George S. Hawley

Florida

Dr. Addison O'Neill

Illinois

Eugene Hutchinson

margaret rhodes peattie

Indiana

Albert Ernest Schaaf

Iowa

Charles B. Keeler

Maine

Sylvan B. Phillips

Massachusetts

Dwight A. Davis

Walter G. Wolfe

Michigan

Herman Gabriel

Eleanor W. Willard

Missouri

Edwin Loker

New Jersey

Joseph R. Ashmore

New York State

Spencer Kellogg, Jr.

George B. Hollister

New York City

Edward R. Dickson

Walter L. Ehrich

Antoinette B. Hervey

Dr. Charles H. Jaeger

Mervin W. Palmer

Clarence H. White

Edith R. Wilson

Thomas Coke Watkins

Ohio

Jane Reece

Austin R. Breed

Carle Semon

Oregon

Clementine Hirsch

Pennsylvania

Will D. brodhun

Elias Goldensky

Maurice L. Fleisher

Mrs. M. W. Wiltse

Utah

Thomas O. Sheckell

Wisconsin

B. F. Langland

England

Alvin Langdon Colburn

Canada

Charles H. Barnard

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