About the School

  • Gertrude L. Brown. Clarence H. White [seated center], Gertrude Käsebier [seated right], and students, Summer School of Photography, Five Islands, Maine. c. 1913. Platinum print, 5 15/16 x 7 7/16”(13.48 x 18.87 cm). Courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.

    A self-taught photographer from rural Ohio, Clarence H. White (1871–1925) first became famous for his delicate, idealized images of rural family life. A charter member of the Photo-Secession in 1902, he was a frequent contributor to Camera Work and, after 1906, when he moved to New York, a member of Alfred Stieglitz’s inner circle. Appointed the first photography instructor at Columbia University Teachers College in 1907, White also taught photography at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Science (now the Brooklyn Museum) for thirteen years. Purchasing a small cabin in Maine in 1910, he founded the Seguinland School of Photography, a summer school where well-known photographers such as F. Holland Day and Gertrude Käsebier supplemented White’s gentle instruction with informal critiques. White continued to promote Pictorialism even after falling out with Stieglitz in 1910 over the latter’s abandonment of the style in favor of more modern directions.

    In 1914 White founded the Clarence H. White School of Photography in New York with the painter Max Weber, who infused the pedagogy with the design principles of Arthur Wesley Dow and formal painterly concerns from his recent experiences studying art in Paris. Paul L. Anderson, an expert on technique, also taught. To be closer to the city, White moved his summer program to East Canaan, Connecticut, in 1916, and to nearby Canaan the following year, where it continued to serve as an extension of his school. Although White’s belief that Pictorialism could be compatible with modern art eventually wore thin, his style of teaching, which encouraged students to find their own creative vision, nurtured many talents, and his school provided them with fine technical training and a useful background in design and art theory. Supportive of the practical applications of artistic photography, in 1920 White joined his school to other institutions, including the American Institute of Graphic Arts and the Art Directors Club, to form The Art Center in New York. The influence of his school, in the form of superlative technique and meticulous attention to formal design and print quality, was carried into the world through his many students, among them Anton Bruehl, Margaret Bourke-White, Anne W. Brigman, Gertrude LeRoy Brown, John P. Heins, Bernard Shea Horne, Dorothea Lange, Walter R. Latimer, Sr., Paul Outerbridge, and Ralph Steiner. The White School continued to serve a vital role in the technical instruction in photography in New York City until 1942; after the untimely death of its leader, in 1925, it was run by White’s wife, Jane White, and their son, Clarence White, Jr.

    —Maria Morris Hambourg, Audrey Sands

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Summer 1914
Studies at the Clarence White School of Photography
At location: Gertrude LeRoy Brown
New York
1914
Begins studying photography with Clarence H. White and meets Blanche Hungerford, who is also a student of White's
At location: Walter R. Latimer, Sr.
New York
1915–16
Studies at the Clarence White School of Photography
At location: Gertrude LeRoy Brown
New York
June 1916
Walter Latimer's works are published as illustrations of student photography to accompany an article by Alvin Langdon Coburn in the magazine Photo-Graphic Art
Contributor: Alvin Langdon Coburn, Walter R. Latimer, Sr.
New York
1916–17
Studies at the Clarence White School of Modern Photography
At location: Bernard Shea Horne
New York
1917
Serves as acting president of the White School Alumni Association
At location: Bernard Shea Horne
New York
1918–26
Teaches at the Clarence White School of Photography
At location: Bernard Shea Horne
New York
1920
Represented in the book Pictorial Photography in America, published by the Pictorial Photographers of America under Clarence H. White's leadership
Contributor: Walter R. Latimer, Sr.
New York
1920
Solo exhibition at the Clarence White School of Photography
Participant: Bernard Shea Horne
New York
1920–42
Teaches art appreciation and design at the Clarence White School of Modern Photography
At location: John P. Heins
New York
Spring 1922
Studies photography with Clarence White and befriends Ralph Steiner in class. Her mothers buys her an Ica Reflex, her first camera
At location: Margaret Bourke-White
New York
1923
Delivers a lecture at the Clarence H. White School of Photography, later published in the British Journal of Photography as "The Art Motive in Photography"
At location: Paul Strand
New York
1923–24
Studies at the Clarence White School
At location: Anton Bruehl
New York
1924
Serves as acting president of the White School Alumni Association
At location: Bernard Shea Horne
New York
1924–25
Publishes photographs in Camera Pictures
Contributor: Gertrude LeRoy Brown, Bernard Shea Horne
New York
1939
Earns his MS degree from Clarence White's Teacher's College; writes his thesis on Clarence White as a teacher
At location: John P. Heins
New York

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