Hand-painted photo art

Size 10 x 12", hand signed

Sales Price $750

or best offer

Wallace Nutting (1861-1941) was among the most popular and prolific artists working in America. By his own estimation, millions of his fanciful photos were produced into what became a cottage industry for the man who started out as a preacher.

During the early 20th century, modestly priced hand-colored photos created as art was a unique concept distinct from the mechanically reproduced prints on the market for the general public. Hundreds of artists and illustrators were creating works, reproduced for magazines and periodicals, calendars, books and advertising markets. These works were fashioned to sell a product, not the artwork. Published in disposable formats, many of these pictures were quickly lost. But some of the images became popular and were then reproduced as inexpensive framed art prints. Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966) is a classic example of an illustrator for the trade who went on to be published as an artist.

Nutting began taking photos of his surroundings on the East Coast in 1899. Inspired by what he called “a love of the beautiful,” his photographs captured an Arcadian ambiance that the natural landscape, endowed with an endless bounty of pastoral views, provided. Nutting never considered himself to be an artist. After studying theology at Harvard and graduating in 1887, he became a Congregational minister. In 1893 he was awarded a doctor of divinity but his life as a cleric was cut short when at the age of 43, plagued by ill-health, he reluctantly retired from his ministry.

In 1904 he founded the Wallace Nutting Art Prints Studio in New York City. A year later, he relocated his enterprise to a farm in Southbury, Conn., dubbing it “Nuttinghame.” By 1912 he had moved again, this time to Framingham, Mass., where he settled permanently with studio and home and called it “Nuttingholme.” He employed up to 200 colorists, who were hand-painting photographs of what became the Nutting signature style of softly lit photos of hearth and home.

Nutting is regarded as being the influence behind the early 20th century revival of the American Colonial style. Typical of his interior scenes would be a woman seated by a fireplace, dressed in colonial attire, crafting needlework with the warm fire burning nearby.

Collector interest in 20th century hand-colored photography produced between 1900-1940 is active with many treasures still to be found. Wallace Nutting remains at the top of the market in sales. Several photographers who worked with Nutting went on to establish their own careers in the genre. They include David Davidson (1881-1967), Charles Sawyer (1868-1954) and Fred Thompson (1844-1909).

By  Mary Manion