I learned about this amazing photographer when we attended the Tahoe: A Visual History three years ago at the Nevada Museum of Art.

Mary Jo, Cyndy, Laura and I joined together for a girls' day out to see this exhibit. This major retrospective exhibition, at the Museum through January 27, 2019, rediscovers and celebrates the work of Anne Brigman (1869-1950) who is best known for her iconic landscape photographs, made in the early 1900s, depicting herself and other female nudes outdoors in the Sierra Nevada. What's not to love?!


Born in Hawaii (1869) to missionary parents, Anne moved to California when she was sixteen years old. She said of the move, "the ache in [her] legs for flight... [and] the wild, wonderful need to stampede."
You may not recognize her name, but you've probably seen one of Anne Brigman's photos before. She photographed people -- including herself -- nude, in dramatic poses against wild, natural backdrops, often in the High Sierras. Her photographs have become textbook examples of "Pictorialism," a phase in photographic history which flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries -- a time when photographers tried to justify their worth in a world more fond of painting. Pictorialist photographers manipulated their images to make them look more like "artistic creations" than mere realistic snaps of a subject.
Anne was 32 years old when in 1091 she bought her No. 1 Folding Pocket Camera E by Kodak... a very new and user-friendly camera.
Photography was a new medium then where artists wanted to elevate photography to the level of other fields and be taken seriously. A mere year after she took up photography in 1901, Anne wrote a letter to Alfred Stieglitz, the godfather of art photography of her day (famous for his relationship with Georgia O'Keeffe, following the end of his with Brigman). Stieglitz rewarded her moxie and talent by inducting her into the Photo-Secession movement. Photo-Secessionists championed the idea that a photograph need not be slavishly dedicated to the depiction of reality, but instead composed and even manipulated to deliver a compelling subjective vision.
This hiking, pioneering photographer climbed to high Sierra summits, "reclaiming the legendary summit as her own. The visualization of the human form as a part of tree and rock rhythms." Dawn dreamily showcases Donner Lake in the distance. Anne is recognized as the earliest self-portrait woman photographer to capture herself in the nude.
The Guest is an amazing example of her ability to manipulate an image, adding a layer of surreal that I absolutely loved.


Anne Brigman worked in other mediums, as well. I loved this black ink linoleum print (1930). The composition shows the silhouettes of three mermaids in profile above a wave. The figures appear in front of a large sphere (likely the sun or moon). Each mermaid wears a crown composed of long radiating lines. Having taken printmaking classes before, I appreciated the details in and talent needed to create this print.
We then meandered to Laid Bare in the Landscape. This was a collection of photographs by women who were influenced by the work of Anne Brigman. "To compare the landscape photo of Anne to her counterparts of the late 20th to early 21st century is to weave a new thread connecting generations of women artists who have aimed to explore and promote alternative ways of seeing and knowing." I have included my three most favorite followers.
Night Bathing was taken by Louise Dahl-Wolfe (United States, 1895–1989) who is best known as a fashion photographer. Her tenure at Harper’s Bazaar from 1936 until 1958, a period when the journal was at the vanguard of dramatic changes to the style and content of women’s magazines, provided her with particular prestige. Although she is generally recognized for her astute and early use of color photography to illustrate fashion, a closer examination of Dahl-Wolfe’s body of work reveals a much more complex photographer. Through masterful combination of artistic skill, art historical knowledge, cultural consciousness, and aesthetic refinement, Dahl-Wolfe created images that constitute important contributions to the history of photography.
There was something very whimsical about Mary Beth Edelson's Zippy Trickster (1973). I liked it.
Kaa by Cara Romero really moved me. This fine art photographic portrait was created as a tribute to Mud Woman, a female deity honored by Pueblo Indian potters. Unique and beautiful.

We traveled to Reno and the Nevada Museum of Art for its exceptional Tahoe exhibit with Chris and Jan. It was my third trip but their and Steve's first.

Ever since I "Experienced one of America’s most beloved landscapes like never before" I've wanted to bring Steve here to see Tahoe through the eyes of 175 painters, photographers, architects, basket weavers, and sculptors. Chris and Jan were also eager to see this exceptional exhibit before it closes on January 10th.
Interestingly, the fun began before we even entered the museum.
Each time I've been here, I've shared an artist that I found intriguing. Today's was Anne Brigman (1869-1950). Trained as a painter, she turned to photography in 1902. "[S]lim, hearty, unaffected women of early maturity living a hardy out-of-door life in high boots and jeans, toughened to wind and sun" were Brigman's favored subjects, and she photographed them nude in the landscape of the Sierra Nevada mountains. So pioneering and brazen. I loved her photographs.
I loved that Steve thoroughly enjoyed this Tahoe art historical survey exhibition, too. 
Maya Lin's Pin River (above) still gives me goosebumps. But I have to admit, Steve's reflection in her Secchi Point was pretty amazing.
This piece is a series of cut glass globes that represent annual rainfall totals and Lake clarity in the Tahoe basin over the past 50 years. It was a unique perspective to ponder.
After a delicious lunch at the museum's Chez Louie we strolled to my favorite bookstore, The Radiant Original Sundance Books and Music.

I went with the shopping intention of getting my own copy of Lewis Buzbee's The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop. It is truly one of my favorite books and this was the perfect place in which to purchase it.
I love to share images of things that make me smile. Is this Christmas tree perfect or what?! Steve said upon seeing it, "We could totally do that!"

Sharing our day with friends. Discovering new things. Playing tourists in a familiar place. These are the ingredients that make a wonderful day.

What a unique way to spend Mother's Day... Learning about some amazing local women!

On a glorious 93° Sunday, we found ourselves returning to the Minden Mill for a special history program presented by David and Gayle Woodruff- No Limits… No Boundaries: Tenacious Women of the Eastern Sierra. 
We began with Sarah Winnemucca. Please note, as with every one of David's talks, the history he shares is so in-depth. He is an incredible researcher and storyteller. I can only give a brief introduction to all of these exceptional women. All demand deeper studies. Sarah (c. 1844–1891) was a prominent Northern Paiute author, activist, and educator who tirelessly advocated for her people's rights amid Western expansion. Daughter of Chief Winnemucca, she served as an Army interpreter, scout, and lecturer, becoming the first Native American woman to publish a book, Life Among the Paiutes (1883).
Mary Austin (1868–1934) was a prolific American author, feminist, and environmental activist best known for The Land of Little Rain (1903), a seminal, transcendentalist tribute to the California desert. A pioneer in regionalism and Native American advocacy, she wrote over 30 books, including novels, plays, and essays focusing on the American Southwest's nature and culture. In her later life, she moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico where she became a central figure in the literary community and founder of the Santa Fe Playhouse.
Nellie Bly Baker O'Bryan (1893–1984) was a pioneering American silent film actress, Hollywood projectionist, and Eastern Sierra entrepreneur. Moving from Oklahoma to Hollywood in 1918, she became California's first licensed female motion-picture projectionist. She worked with Charlie Chaplin, appearing in 14 films including The Kid (1921). In 1935, Nellie relocated to Mono County and opened a summer resort. She became an entrepreneur and also a skilled wilderness guide. Eventually, she sold the resort but spent the rest of her life in the area. She is credited with building a local tourist attraction, the "Upside Down House" which in its heyday was the most popular tourist attraction in Mono County (my blog post about it is here).
Nan Zischank (1907–2000) was new to us. There was little in her early life to suggest she would one day be who she became. Born into a wealthy and socially prominent family in Ohio, Nan lived as a young girl in Boston and attended finishing school on Cape Cod, where she learned the requisite skills—management of servants among them—for a life in East Coast society. Long story short, in 1935, she and her husband Max moved to an isolated winter cabin in the alpine scenery and deep snow of the Sierra Nevada eastern slopes. That, she made clear to all, was when her life began in earnest. She was a prominent Eastern Sierra pioneer, expert skier, and local businesswoman who operated the Long Valley Resort near Crowley Lake before WWII. During the war, Max enlisted and Nan worked as a "companion, guide, advisor and diplomat" at the Manzanar War Relocation Center. What a life well lived.
The final tenacious woman showcased has been on this blog a couple of times. Anne Brigman, a late nineteenth-century pictorialist photographer, was born in Hawaii but spent most of her life in California. Throughout her life, she was recognized for her courageous and modernist spirit as one of the first-ever female photographers to capture self-portraits of her body in the wilderness. As a woman with a Christian missionary upbringing and a suffragette, she did not fit the conventional profile of the early 1900s woman, and was often an advocate for women’s rights. Her work and her life as an artist was tied to the social-political time in which she lived, demonstrating her freedom of soul and mind. Wow.