Catharine Weed Barnes (U.S., 1851-1913)

“A Study in Japanese”

Photogravure, 1890

9.5 x 7.5 inches

Catharine Weed Barnes Ward was an amateur photographer in New York. Starting in 1889, she campaigned to promote the role of women in both amateur and professional photography. In her lectures and writings, she urged the elimination of special salon awards for photographs by women: “If the work of men and women is admitted to the same exhibition it should be on equal terms.” According to photographic historian Peter Palmquist, “In May 1890, she joined the staff of the American Amateur Photographer, as the writer of a column called ‘Women’s Work,’ perhaps the first woman to become a photography columnist and associate editor of a photographic journal.”

“A Study in Japanese” was published in the elegant art periodical Sun and Shade, a production of the New York Photo-Gravure Company that was the forerunner of Alfred Stieglitz’s Camera Notes and Camera Work magazines.