The Dying Cedar

Photographer Anne W. Brigman created today's work from the Smithsonian American Art Museum's photography collection.

Anne W. Brigman, born in 1869, was known for her photographs of female nudes in landscape settings. Enjoying early success as a Pictorialist, she was a member of the Camera Club of San Francisco and the Photo-Secession group.

The January 1909 issue of Camera Work published five of Brigman's photographs, including The Dying Cedar.… Because critics unfamiliar with California and the Sierra Nevada sometimes accused Brigman of staging photographs in her studio, the editors added: "These negatives are not produced in a studio 'fitted up with papier-maché trees and painted backgrounds,' but have been taken in the open, in the heart of the wilds of California."

Nature was paramount in Brigman's life and work. Often using herself or friends as models for her photographs of nudes she usually juxtaposed the figures with trees or rocks, reflecting her celebration of woman and nature as parallel sources of energy. Brigman also wrote expressive poetry, and in 1929 she published a book of poems titled Songs of a Pagan.

These lines from the poem "Cry" describe her photograph of The Dying Cedar:

Beloved Earth… I am weary of your mighty clasp.
Life Crowds… I am exhausted with the stern decree
Of your relentless, aging binding, bending grasp…
Beloved Earth…

Source: Merry A. Foresta. American Photographs: The First Century (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996).

Pictured: Anne Brigman, 1869–1950, The Dying Cedar, 1906, platinum print on paper mounted on paper, 9 1/4 x 6 3/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase from the Charles Isaacs Collection made possible in part by the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment.