John Chislett

John Chislett, like other members of the Salon Club of America, was devoted to the creative rather than the mimetic possibilities of photography. His soft-focus images and use of the tonally rich platinum printing process demonstrate his interest in the suggestive effect of light. Like other Salon photographers at the turn of the century who aspired to art, Chislett believed the medium's true aim was to record the impression of facts, not the facts themselves.

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