A leading figure of American Pictorialist photography, Ohio-born Clarence H. White (1871–1925) was an influential teacher and a gifted artist celebrated for his beautiful scenes of quiet domesticity and outdoor idylls. The first retrospective devoted to this dedicated visionary in more than a generation, this exhibition surveys White’s career from its beginnings in Newark, Ohio, in 1895 to his death in Mexico in 1925.

The exhibition and its accompanying publication not only explore White’s work but locate it within the context of the international Arts and Crafts movement, the development of photographic magazine illustration and advertising, and the redefinition of childhood and the domestic sphere. To illuminate the artistic environment in which White’s style evolved, paintings by John White Alexander, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Edmund Charles Tarbell, and Arthur Wesley Dow are complemented by a selection of over 65 rare photographic prints, illustrated books, and albums.

Clarence H. White and His World: The Art and Craft of Photography, 1895–1925 is organized by the Princeton University Art Museum. The exhibition has been made possible, in part, with generous support from the Henry Luce Foundation.

Image: The Sea [Rose Pastor Stokes, Caritas Island, Connecticut], 1909, printed after 1917. Clarence H. White (American, 1871–1925). Palladium print; 24.5 x 18.5 cm. Princeton University Art Museum, The Clarence H. White Collection, assembled and organized by Professor Clarence H. White Jr., and given in memory of Lewis F. White, Dr. Maynard P. White Sr., and Clarence H. White Jr., the sons of Clarence H. White Sr. and Jane Felix White, x1983-496