F. Holland Day
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Fred Holland Day (July 23, 1864 – November 23, 1933) was an American photographer and publisher. He was prominent in literary and photography circles in the late nineteenth century and was a leading Pictorialist. He was an early and vocal advocate for accepting photography as a fine art.


Life

Fred Holland Day was the son of a wealthy
Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
merchant, and was a man of independent means for all his life. He was a descendant of Ralph Day of Dedham. Day's life and works were controversial because he took an unconventional approach to religious subjects and often photographed male nudes. His emphasis on the classical ideal sometimes bordered on
homoeroticism Homoeroticism is sexual attraction between members of the same sex, including both male–male and female–female attraction. The concept differs from the concept of homosexuality: it refers specifically to the desire itself, which can be tempor ...
. According to Pam Roberts, "Day never married and his sexual orientation, whilst it is widely assumed that he was homosexual, because of his interests, his photographic subject matter, his general flamboyant demeanor, was, like much else about him, a very private matter." Day spent much time among poor immigrant children in Boston, tutoring them in reading and mentoring them. One in particular, the 13-year-old Lebanese immigrant
Kahlil Gibran Gibran Khalil Gibran (January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931), usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran, was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and Visual arts, visual artist; he was also considered a philosopher, although he himself reject ...
, went on to fame as the author of '' The Prophet''. Day co-founded and self-financed the publishing firm of Copeland and Day, which from 1893 through 1899 published about a hundred titles. The firm was influenced by the
Arts and Crafts movement The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America. Initiat ...
and
William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditiona ...
's Kelmscott Press. The firm was the American publisher of
Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential playwright ...
's '' Salomé'', illustrated by
Aubrey Beardsley Aubrey Vincent Beardsley ( ; 21 August 187216 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Woodblock printing in Japan, Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. ...
; '' The Yellow Book'', a periodical also illustrated by Beardsley; and '' The Black Riders and Other Lines'' by
Stephen Crane Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871 – June 5, 1900) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism an ...
. He is known to have traveled.
Beaumont Newhall Beaumont Newhall (June 22, 1908 – February 26, 1993) was an American curator, art historian, writer, photographer, and the second director of the George Eastman Museum. His book, ''The History of Photography'', remains one of the most signif ...
states that he visited
Algiers Algiers is the capital city of Algeria as well as the capital of the Algiers Province; it extends over many Communes of Algeria, communes without having its own separate governing body. With 2,988,145 residents in 2008Census 14 April 2008: Offi ...
, possibly as a result of reading Wilde and Gide. There is a photographic ''Portrait of F. Holland Day in Arab Costume, 1901'' by Frederick H. Evans. Day was a friend of Louise Imogen Guiney and Ralph Adams Cram, and a member of social clubs, such as the Visionists, formed around shared interests in arts and literature. He was a major patron of
Aubrey Beardsley Aubrey Vincent Beardsley ( ; 21 August 187216 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Woodblock printing in Japan, Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. ...
. He was also a lifelong bibliophile and collector. Most notable among his collections was his world-class collection on the poet
John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tub ...
.


Work

At the turn of the century, his influence and reputation as a photographer rivaled that of
Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz (; January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was k ...
, who later eclipsed him. The high point of Day's photographic career was probably his organization of an exhibition of photographs at the
Royal Photographic Society The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, commonly known as the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), is the world's oldest photographic society having been in continuous existence since 1853. It was founded in London, England, in 1853 as th ...
in 1900. ''New School of American Photography'' presented 375 photographs by 42 photographers, 103 of them by Day, and evoked both high praise and vitriolic scorn from critics. The populist ''Photographic News'' saw it as the result "of a diseased imagination, of which much has been fostered by the ravings of a few lunatics ... unacademic ... and eccentric". Day belonged to the pictorialist movement which regarded photography as a fine art and which often included symbolist imagery. The Photo-Secessionists invited him to join, but he declined the offer. As was common at the time, his photographs allude to
classical antiquity Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural History of Europe, European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the inter ...
in manner, composition and often in theme. From 1896 through 1898 Day experimented with Christian themes, using himself as a model for Jesus. Neighbors in
Norwood, Massachusetts Norwood is a town and census-designated place in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Norwood is part of the Greater Boston area. As of the 2020 census, the population was 31,611. The town was named after Norwood, England. Norwood is ...
, assisted him in an outdoor photographic re-enactment of the crucifixion of Jesus. This culminated in his series of self-photographs, ''The Seven Last Words,'' depicting the seven last words of Christ. He often made only a single print from a negative. He used only the platinum process, being unsatisfied with any other, and lost interest in photography when platinum became unobtainable following the
Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...
.


Legacy

Day became all but forgotten for a number of reasons. He was eclipsed by his rival, Stieglitz. The pictorial and symbolist photographic style went out of fashion in the face of the radical shift towards early
modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
in the art world. Two thousand of his prints and negatives were lost in a 1904 fire. The few hundred that survived were sent to the Royal Photographic Society in the 1930s. Since the 1990s, Day's works have been included in major exhibitions by museum curators, notably in the solo Day retrospective at the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
in 2000-2001 and similar shows at the
Royal Photographic Society The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, commonly known as the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), is the world's oldest photographic society having been in continuous existence since 1853. It was founded in London, England, in 1853 as th ...
in England and the Fuller Craft Museum. Art historians are once again taking an interest in Day, and there are now significant academic texts on Day's homoerotic portraiture, and its similarities to the work of
Walter Pater Walter Horatio Pater (4 August 1839 – 30 July 1894) was an English essayist, Art critic, art and literary critic, and fiction writer, regarded as one of the great stylists. His first and most often reprinted book, ''Studies in the History of t ...
and
Thomas Eakins Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American Realism (visual arts), realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artist ...
. Day's house at 93 Day Street in Norwood, Massachusetts, is now the F. Holland Day House & Norwood History Museum. It also serves as the headquarters of the Norwood Historical Society.


Further reading

* Estelle Jussim. ''Slave to Beauty: The Eccentric Life and Controversial Career of F. Holland Day'' (1981). * Stephen M. Parrish. ''Currents of the Nineties in Boston and London: Fred Holland Day, Louise Imogen Guiney, and Their Circle'' (1987). * James Crump. ''F. Holland Day: Suffering the Ideal''F. Holland Day: Suffering the Ideal: James Crump, F. Holland Day: 9780944092330: Amazon.com: Books
/ref> (1995). * ''F. Holland Day: Selected Texts and Bibliography'' (1995). * Samuel Coale et al. ''New Perspectives on F. Holland Day'' (1998). * Patricia J. Fanning. ''Through an Uncommon Lens: The Life and Photography of F. Holland Day'' (2008). * Trevor Fairbrother. ''Making a Presence: F. Holland Day in Artistic Photography'' (Andover, Mass.: Addison Gal. of Amer. Art, 2012).


See also

* Fred Holland Day House


References


External links


The F. Holland Day Historic House: About Fred Holland Day


{{DEFAULTSORT:Day, F. Holland 1864 births 1933 deaths 19th-century American publishers (people) 20th-century American publishers (people) 19th century in Boston 19th-century American photographers 20th-century American photographers 19th-century American LGBTQ people 20th-century American LGBTQ people Photographers from Boston American gay artists People from Norwood, Massachusetts Pictorialists American bibliophiles