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DORIS ULMANN
(American, 1884-1934)
Aunt Lou Kitchen, 1934
Platinum print
Purchase: The Robert C. May Photography Endowment

In her photographs, Doris Ulmann blends the soft focus of her roots in the Pictorialist aesthetic with the documentary subject matter of her inclination toward social reportage. In 1903, she graduated from the Teacher Training Department of The Ethical Culture School in her native New York City with the intention of teaching psychology. Her career took another path, however, after she enrolled in photography classes with Clarence H. White, both at the Columbia Teachers College and later, in 1915-18, at White’s own school in New York. Ulmann became a well-known portraitist of literary and medical figures, publishing three books of photogravures of prominent people. In time, Ulmann’s interest in preserving isolated cultures inspired her to travel from New York throughout the Appalachian region to record the folklife of Kentucky and the South. Aunt Lou Kitchen, for example, who was captured by Ulmann in this photograph, was a spinner and weaver in Shootin’ Creek, North Carolina.