⊙ Wallace Nutting A Retrospective(Early 20th Century Hand Colored Photographs) - Virtual Tour

Wallace Nutting (November 17, 1861 – July 19, 1941)

Wallace Nutting was a U.S. minister, photographer, artist, and antiquarian, who is most famous for his landscape photos of New England. He also was an accomplished author, lecturer, furniture maker, antiques expert and collector. His atmospheric photographs helped spur the Colonial Revival style.

Photography

In 1904 he opened the Wallace Nutting Art Prints Studio on East 23rd Street in New York. After a year he moved his business to a farm in Southbury, Connecticut. He called this place "Nuttinghame". In 1912 he moved the photography studio to Framingham, Massachusetts; in a home he called "Nuttingholme". That year he published a catalog of prints that was 97 pages and included about 900 images. By 1915, Nutting claimed to be earning $1,000 per day.

Nutting's photographs ranged in subject and price to suit a variety of tastes; His catalog included pastoral scenes such as views of abbeys, cathedrals, bridges, mountains, flowers, and winding roads. One of his most common themes was "Colonials", which were photos of women in traditional 18th-Century roles. These were traditional pictures of femininity, usually pictured indoors in front of a chest, chair, or looking glass. His prints sold from $1.25 to $20.

Nutting authored several books about the scenic beauties of New England, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. In the peak of his business he employed about two hundred colorists. By his own account, Wallace Nutting sold ten million pictures. Wallace Nutting's colorists painted the photographs which he took. These colorists would sometimes sign Wallace Nutting's name on the photos which is why the signatures vary.