Cornelia Montgomery

Closely associated with Pictorialism and the late nineteenth-century movement to align photography with fine art, Käsebier was, at the turn of the twentieth century, considered one of the foremost portrait photographers in America. Such recognition was remarkable given that she did not publicly exhibit her work until 1898. A mere two years later, she was elected to the premier photographic societies of the day: London’s Linked Ring and the Camera Club of New York. Her portrait of Cornelia Montgomery was reproduced in July 1899 in the latter society’s journal, Camera Notes. Unlike her better-known soft-focus images that evoke Victorian ideals of femininity, this boldly graphic portrait betrays a stark formalism present elsewhere in Käsebier’s work.