Lot 16: Adam Clark Vroman , 1856-1916 oraibi woman at window

platinum print, numbered '72/2' in an unidentified hand in pencil in the margin, matted, 1902

measurements note 8 1/8 by 6 1/8 in. (20.7 by 15.6 cm.)

Jill Quasha, The Quillan Collection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Photographs (New York, 1991), pl. 36 (this print)Another print of this image:William Webb and Robert A. Weinstein, Dwellers at the Source: Southwestern Indian Photographs of A. C. Vroman, 1895-1904 (Albuquerque, 1973), pl. 61

Estate of the photographerG. Ray Hawkins, Los Angeles, 1976Simon Lowinsky, New York, 1985Acquired by Jill Quasha, New York , from the above, 1985Acquired by the Quillan Company from the above, 1989

Adam Clark Vroman spent almost a decade photographing Southwestern pueblo tribes and their cultures after witnessing a Hopi snake dance performance as a tourist in 1895. Working with a large-format camera, and printing primarily in platinum, Vroman created a body of work that is distinguished by its sensitivity. As in the present portrait of a Hopi woman, Vroman neither glamorized nor stereotyped his subjects, but portrayed them directly and with humanity. His photographs have neither the rigidity of formal ethnographic studies, nor the sentimentality of Pictorialism, the then-current trend in photography. Vroman, a successful Pasadena businessman and owner of a book and stationery store that continues to operate today, did not print his images in great quantities, and his platinum prints are scarce. Most of his output was bound into albums Vroman made for himself and for friends who shared his interests. Many of these albums now reside in institutions: the Pasadena Public Library, The Huntington Library, The Autry National Center of the Museum of the American West, and The Denver Art Museum, among them. His negatives, including that of the present print, are held by the Seaver Center, a part of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (cf. Andrew Smith and Jennifer A. Watts, Adam Clark Vroman: Platinum Prints, 1895-1904). As of this writing, only two other prints of this image have been located: a gelatin silver print in this size format at the Autry National Center, Los Angeles; and a large-format gelatin silver print made from Vroman's original negative by his friend, the ethnologist Frederick Monsen, at The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.