Softly, through the lens - selected photographs by the Parrish Sisters

 Portrait of Nadine Stein, 1909.

Carqueiranne, South France,1926.

Portrait of young man 8, 1914. This and the next image are portraits of the artist Nino Ronchi. 

Young man sitting on a table, 1914. (The model's name was previously spelled "Rouchi" in this post, the way I found it spelled online.)

Dorothy Fellowes-Gordon, 1921.

 Bible Wrape, 1923.

 House and trees reflected in water, 1913.

Mrs. Richey, 1910.

Portrait of a young man, 1914.

Woman reclining on bed, 1910.

Nude man lying on rock beside stream 2, 1914. This and the following five images were all posed by Nino Ronchi.

 Nude man sitting on rock, 1914.

Nude man sitting beside stream, 1914.

Nude man standing by stream, waterfall to his left, 1914.

Nude man standing on rocks in front of waterfall, 1914.

(The title and date which I found attached to this were obviously incorrect. But the setting, model, and date are the same as those above.)

 Marguerite Kauffman Fischel, published author and composer, 1922.

Nora Van Laren, 1910.

Woman standing in front of door, 1910.

Woman standing at door, 1910.

Villa Medici, 1913.

Portrait of a young man 6 (Nino Ronchi), 1914.

 Portrait of Nino Ronchi smoking a cigarette, 1914.

 Nino Ronchi - artist, 1914.

Young man with cigarette (Nino Ronchi), 1914.

Portrait of a young man smoking a cigarette (Nino Ronchi), 1914.

Tree in woods, 1915.

Rosa Mystica, 1915.

 Petronelle Sombart, 1919.

 Petronelle Sombart, 1907.

 Petronelle Sombart, 1907.

 Petronelle Sombart, 1925.

 Constance Crawley, English actress, 1910.

A frosty morning, 1915.

Along the canal - winter, 1915.

 Guida Richey 2, 1912.

Guida Richey 5, 1910.

Au defense (Guida Richey), 1910.

Atrani, Italy, 1914.

Frieda, 1909.

Portrait of a young woman, 1909. The same model as above.

 Nude man reclining on rocks, 1914. These three images are cropped vignettes printed from the same series as above.

Nude man sitting on rock 2, 1914.

Nude man lying on rock, 1914.

Shoreline, 1915.

Woman sitting on staircase (Nadine Stein), 1910.

Nadine Stein, 1909.

Nadine Stein, 1909.

Shrine - Hyères-les-Palmiers, South France, 1914.

Swan song, 1914.

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Williamina Parrish (9 September 1879, St. Louis - 3 January 1941, St. Louis) and Grace Parrish (21 August 1881, St. Louis - 9 March 1954, St. Louis), photographers who worked together as The Parrish Sisters at the beginning of the twentieth century. They were born into an upper-middle-class family in St. Louis; their father owned a successful laundry business. The sisters began taking photographs while still children; quoted in Western Camera Notes, June 1903, where their work was prominently featured, they stated that they had begun six years previously. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch praised the sisters, saying they were "two of the cleverest young amateurs" and their work "equals work done by professional photographers of many years' experience". It appears the sisters began their professional career in 1904 after attending the St. Louis World's Fair; their first work was a series of photographs by Williamina - "Will" - of the nine muses, with Grace posing for each in Greek dress. Though they opened their own photography studio in St. Louis, as well as having work widely published in specialty journals, they also faced rejection; in a letter of 1917 from Alfred Stieglitz to Will, rejecting some of her photographs for his gallery: "The Little Gallery is not devoted entirely to the ultra modern in painting and sculpture. It is devoted to ideas. To the development of such. And I feel that your work, good as it is, is primarily picture making. That is not adding to the idea of photography, nor to the idea of expression. And for that reason it would be out of place in the Little Gallery."

Will was considered the leader of The Potters, an informal group of American female artists in St. Louis. They printed their original art, poetry and prose in The Potter's Wheel, a monthly artistic and literary magazine - edited by Will - produced from November 1904 to October 1907. At least some of the members were bisexual or lesbian, as was their mentor, Lillie Rose Ernst, assistant superintendent of education in the St. Louis public school system. Several members of the group went on to have successful careers in the arts.

Though they would later sign their work individually, in the early part of their career, Will - who seems to have been the dominant force in their partnership - insisted that they be billed jointly on all their work:

"... my younger sister Grace and I work together and that is the only reason any of our pictures are worth while. So you will please put us together in speaking of them, as it would be unfair to say that I alone had made the photographs. We think and work together for one end – Art"

*

Addendum, June 2024: The granddaughter of Williamina recently contacted me by email and gave me a further bit of information. Her grandmother had actually first been married to the young Milanese artist Nino Ronchi who features in so many of these images. (And whose name I had originally misspelled in this post as "Rouchi", which is how, in relation to the Parrish photographs, it is most frequently found online.) The photographs of the young man were mostly taken in Italy when Williamina was serving as a governess for Nino's younger sister. The couple later married in New York sometime during the early 1920s. But they apparently divorced after a few years and Williamina went on to marry a British barrister, my correspondent's grandfather. Several of Ronchi's paintings remain in the family.