Laura Gilpin

Laura Gilpin (April 22, 1891 – November 30, 1979) was an American photographer.

Gilpin is known for her photographs of Native Americans, particularly the Navajo and Pueblo, and Southwestern landscapes. Gilpin began taking photographs as a child in Colorado and formally studied photography in New York from 1916 to 1917 before returning to her home in Colorado to begin her career as a professional photographer.

Gilpin enjoyed exploring the outdoors as a child, and her father encouraged her to go camping and hiking in the Colorado landscape. Gilpin's father took several jobs during her childhood, and in 1902 he moved to Durango, Mexico to manage a mine. Several months after he moved there Gilpin's mother joined him, leaving their two children (Laura and her brother) in the care of the directors of Gilpin's school, Mr. and Mrs. William Stark.

Gilpin's mother encouraged her at an early age to study music, and she was educated at eastern boarding schools, including the New England Conservatory of Music, from 1904 to 1908. On her first trip to the East her mother took her to New York to have her portrait taken by well-known photographer Gertrude Käsebier. Later when she decided to become a photographer, Gilpin asked Käsebier to be her mentor. Over the years they developed a lifelong friendship.

When family finances declined, Gilpin left school and returned to Colorado. She enjoyed exploring the outdoors, and she would often visit General William Jackson Palmer, who took her horseback riding and walking around the surrounding areas of their home. On these excursions Palmer would teach the Gilpin about the plants, animals, and other wildlife that they would encounter, laying the foundation for her passion for the landscape, which would become the subject of many of her photographs. Gilpin frequently photographed Forster during the more than fifty years they were together, sometimes placing her in scenes with other people as though she were part of a tableau she happened to come upon. They remained together, with occasional separations necessitated by available jobs, until Forster's death in 1972. After Gilpin recovered she opened her own commercial photography studio in Colorado Springs. In 1924 the Pictorial Photographers of America awarded Gilpin her first New York show.

In 1924, Gilpin's mother died and she was left to care for her father who continued to move from job to job. Between 1942 and 1944 she lived in Wichita, Kansas, where she worked for the Boeing Company photographing airplanes. She left there in 1944, shortly after her father's death, and returned to her beloved Colorado. She continued working and photography throughout the Southwest until her death in 1979. Gilpin is buried at Evergreen Cemetery, Colorado Springs. Elizabeth "Betsy" Warham Forster (1886-1972) is buried in the same cemetery, albeit in a different plot.

Education and career as a photographer Gilpin made her earliest dated autochrome in 1908 when she was 17 years old. She later recalled that "There was practically no art interest in Colorado Springs in those early days...I remember Harvey Young was the only painter in town and I don't think there was a sculptor. I knew nothing about sculpture."

Gilpin spent the summer following her first school year at Clarence White School in Colorado Springs and then moved back to New York in the Fall of 1917. Shortly after, she contracted influenza and was unable to take photos for six months. She came under the care of Elizabeth Forster, a nurse, who became her lifelong friend and companion. When she was well again she began working and taking photos again but never went back to school, and her period of formal study of art came to an end.

As Gilpin began her professional career in 1918 she received much support from her parents.

Gilpin is considered to be one of the great platinum printing photographers, and many of her platinum prints are now in museums around the world. She said "I have always loved the platinum printing process. It's the most beautiful image one can get. It has the longest scale and one can get the greatest degree of contrast. It's not a difficult process; it just takes time."

Over a thirty-year period from 1945 to 1975 her work was seen in more than one hundred one-person and group exhibits. Gilpin's work is archived at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona.

She continued to be very active as a photographer and as a participant in the Santa Fe arts scene until her death in 1979.

Gilpin's photographic and literary archives are now housed at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas.

Honors and awards 1929: Ten of Gilpin's photographs are purchased by the Library of Congress.

Publications The Pueblos: A Camera Chronicle, Hastings house, 1941 Temples in Yucatán: A Camera Chronicle of Hichen Itza, Hastings House, 1948 The Rio Grande: River of Destiny, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1949

reprint Land Beyond Maps, 2009 is an historical novel about Laura Gilpin's experience photographing the Navajo people The Mesa Verde National Park: Reproductions from a Series of Photographs by Laura Gilpin, Colorado Springs: Gilpin Publishing Company, 1927 "Historic Architecture Photography: The Southwest," The Complete Photographer. Vol. 6, pp. 1986–94 Chapter on Portraiture in Graphic Graflex Photography, 1945 Gilpin, Laura, and Martha A. Sandweiss. Laura Gilpin: An Enduring Grace:[produced in Conjunction with... an Exhibition Organized by the Amon Carter Museum... January 24 – April 13, 1986...]. Amon Carter Museum, 1986

Individual and honor exhibitions 1918: Clarence H. White School, New York. Honorable Mention at Joan of Arc Statue Competition. Camera Club Galleries, New York. 1920: Pictorial Photographers of America Traveling Exhibition (circulated by American Federation of Arts). London Salon of Photography (and touring show). 1924: Pictorial Photographers of America Invitational One-Man Show, New York. Baltimore Photographic Club. 1933: Denver Art Museum. Century of Progress Worlds Fair, Chicago. 1934: Library of Congress, Washington D.C. The Taylor Museum for Southwestern Studies, Colorado Springs. American Museum of Natural History Invitational One-Man Show. American Museum of Natural History, New York. 1935: Madrid International Salon, Spain. Beacon School, Wellesley, Massachusetts. 1956: American Museum of Natural History, New York. 1957: Laboratory of Anthropology, Santa Fe. George Eastman House, Rochester, New York. Stillwater, Oklahoma. 1966: St. John's College, Santa Fe 50th Anniversary Exhibition. 1968: The Rio Grand: River of the Arid Land., Museum of Albuquerque. The Enduring Navaho, Amon Carter Museum of Western Art Fort Worth, Texas. 1969: West Texas Museum, Texas Technological College, Lubbock. Photographs in Communication from the Reservation, Exhibition on Indian art and life, Riverside Museum, New York. 1970: Retrospective 1923-1968, Exhibition of Photographs of Indian Culture of the Southwest and Yucatán, Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe. Oklahoma City Art Museum 1971: St. John's College, Santa Fe. 1973: Witkin Gallery, New York. 1974: Major Retrospective Exhibition honoring 70 years in photography, Fine Arts Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, and national tour sponsored by Western Association of Art Museums.