1880-1889
HGO-01-001-O-E-401; HGO-01-001-M-A-15
GUSN-171273
The Emma Lewis Coleman Photographic Collection consists of nearly 300 glass plate negatives, from which study prints have been made.
Coleman's work covers many of the same subjects as the Frederick B. Quimby Photographic Collection but with the marked difference that she was concerned with achieving artistic effects which expressed the timelessness and universality of rural life, after the fashion of Jean-François Millet and other Barbizon school painters. Like Quimby, she worked extensively in York, Maine, where she often posed her city friends in costume to impersonate the rhythms and traditions of farming routines.
In addition to the photographs that are strongly reminiscent of the Barbizon school, there are several studies of persons carrying out traditional handicrafts; views of historic buildings in York and Deerfield, Massachusetts; landscapes; and a small collection of 41 original prints, largely portraiture.
Coleman's images are among the few examples of art photography in the collections of the Library and Archives.
Sources: Guide to the Library and Archives, 10; Memorial Hall Museum website, 2009-11-25.
rural areas
coastal towns
farms
staged photographs
farming
crafts (art genres)
historic buildings
portraits
landscapes (representations)
Barbizon School
glass (material)
black-and-white prints (photographs)
black-and-white negatives
photographic plates
ca. 300 photographic prints : black-and-white in 3 document cases and flat file
ca. 300 glass plate negatives : black-and-white
PC021
Emma Lewis Coleman photographic collection, 1880s
PC021
Deerfield (Franklin county, Massachusetts)
Rhode Island (United States)
Coleman, Emma L., Miss (Photographer)
black-and-white prints (photographs)
black-and-white negatives
photographic plates
York (Me.)
Collection
HGO-01-001-O-E-401; HGO-01-001-M-A-15
Emma Lewis Coleman was a talented amateur photographer, active in the 1880s in York, Maine, Deerfield, Massachusetts, and in rural and shorefront communities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. She was a resident of Deerfield and Cambridge and was a researcher and author, who, with her fellow historian Charlotte Alice Baker (1833-1909), made journeys to Canada to gather information about Deerfield children taken captive in February 1704 and wrote a book based on their findings.
Sources: Guide to the Library and Archives, 10; Memorial Hall Museum website, 2009-11-25.
Related materials are in the possession of the Old Gaol Museum at York, Maine.
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