Historical Portrait
Smith, Bessie, portrait photograph
Archive record
1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in.
About this photograph
This 5x7 inch glass plate negative, catalogued as 1906, is held in the Library of Congress collection of Arnold Genthe materials.
The record identifies the sitter as Bessie Smith. Genthe maintained a studio in San Francisco from 1896 to 1911 before relocating to New York, where he continued photographing into the 1940s. He worked in the soft-focus pictorialist style throughout his career.
The Library of Congress acquired approximately 20,000 items from Genthe's unclaimed studio after his death in 1942. The collection includes several thousand studio portraits alongside his other photographic work.
The date of 1906 places this portrait during Genthe's San Francisco period, though beyond the year and the studio format, the archive record provides no further details about the circumstances of the sitting or the identity of the sitter.
Compiled from the catalogue record and reference notes on the formats and events involved. The archive record above is the primary source.
Rights & Attribution
Explore
More from the 1900s
