Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr.

Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr. (August 7, 1862 – April 25, 1932) was an American pictorialist photographer, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was one of the first Americans (along with Alfred Stieglitz) to be admitted to the Linked Ring, His firm, Osterheld and Eickemeyer, invented a hat-blocking machine that revolutionized the hat industry, and made a number of advancements in electrical lighting. Immediately drawn to the camera's artistic potential, Eickemeyer considered pursuing a career as a photographer, but his father disapproved, so he continued working for his father's firm.

Eickemeyer won 11 medals at the Yonkers Photo Club's Lantern Slide Exhibition in October 1890, That year, he and Alfred Stieglitz became the first Americans admitted to the English pictorialist society, the Linked Ring.

As She Comes Down the Stairs (1894). The model is Eickemeyer's wife, Isabelle In 1900, Eickemeyer joined the New York Camera Club, and exhibited 154 frames in his first one-man show at the club.

Eickemeyer was awarded the gold medal for photography at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. He was described by photography critic Sidney Allen as the "most versatile" pictorialist of his time, and excelled in both landscapes and portraits.

In 1893, Eickemeyer's photographs, Lily Gatherer and As She Comes Down the Stairs (for which his wife, Isabelle, posed) won silver medals at the Joint Annual Exhibition in Philadelphia, and the latter won the gold medal at the Hamburg International Exhibition. In 1894, Eickemeyer won sixteen medals in ten international exhibitions, including the Royal Photographic Society's Albert Medal for his Sweet Home. The following year, he won the Viceroy Gold Medal at the International Exhibition in Calcutta for his photograph, Kitten's Breakfast.

Photographer Roland Rood described Eickemeyer's portraiture photographs of women as "unexcelled, frequently unequaled." His 1901 shoot of New York model Evelyn Nesbit is arguably his best-known portrait work, and included a shot of Nesbit clad in a kimono and curled up on a bear-skin rug. Other well-known women photographed by Eickemeyer include opera singer Mary Garden and actress Lillian Russell.

Eickemeyer published three photographic books: Down South (1900), The Old Farm (1901), and Winter (1903). Down South documents the lives of African American sharecroppers on an Alabama plantation, using photographs taken by Eickemeyer during various trips to Alabama during the 1890s. The Old Farm is a collection of rural images, and Winter is a collection of artistic winter images accompanied by quotes from famous authors. Eickemeyer also provided photographic illustration for books by several other authors, including In and Out of the Nursery (1900), a collection of poems written by his sister, Eva.