Alice Mary Hughes (31 August 1857 – 4 April 1939) was a British portrait photographer and businesswoman specializing in images of royalty, fashionable women and children.
Biography
Alice Hughes was the eldest daughter of the portrait painter
Edward Hughes (1832–1908). After studying photography at the
London Polytechnic
The University of Westminster is a public university based in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1838 as the Royal Polytechnic Institution, it was the first polytechnic to open in London. The Polytechnic formally received a Royal charter in Au ...
she opened a studio in 1891 next to her father's in
Gower Street, London, which she operated until December 1910.
"Alice Hughes"
National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 11 March 2013. In her day, she was a leading photographer of royalty, fashionable women and children, producing elegant platinotype
Platinum prints, also called ''platinotypes'', are photographic prints made by a monochrome photographic printing, printing process involving platinum.
Platinum tones range from warm black, to reddish brown, to expanded mid-tone grays that are ...
prints. During her most successful periods, she employed up to 60 women and took up to 15 sittings a day.["Photographic Studio"]
UCL Bloomsbury project. Retrieved 11 March 2013. In 1914, for a short period before the First World War
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, she ran a business in Berlin but returned to London at the beginning of the war, opening a studio in Ebury Street
Ebury Street () is a street in Belgravia, City of Westminster, London. It runs from a Grosvenor Gardens junction south-westwards to Pimlico Road. It was built mostly in the period 1815 to 1860.
Odd numbers 19 to 231 are on the south-east side ...
in 1915.Worthing
Worthing ( ) is a seaside town and borough in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 113,094 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Br ...
where she died after a fall in her bedroom in 1939.["Hughes, Alice Mary"]
photoLondon. Retrieved 11 March 2013.
From 1898 to 1909, she contributed several hundred portraits to '' Country Life''. In 1910, she sold 50,000 negatives to Speaight Ltd.[
]
Assessment
A pioneer of portrait photography, Hughes developed a distinctive style "by fusing the conventions of society portraiture with the cool, monochromatic tones of the platinum print." (From ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''.)[
]
Gallery
File:Queen Mary 1905.jpg, Queen Mary (1905)
File:LadyJellicoe1917.jpg, Lady Jellicoe (1917)
File:Pauline-Astor-1904.jpg, Pauline Astor (1904)
File:Alexandra of Denmark (1902).jpg, Alexandra of Denmark
Alexandra of Denmark (Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia; 1 December 1844 – 20 November 1925) was List of British royal consorts, queen-consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from 22 Januar ...
(1902)
References
Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Alice Mary
British portrait photographers
1857 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English photographers
19th-century English women artists
20th-century English women artists
19th-century British women photographers
20th-century British women photographers
English women photographers
Photographers from London