Danish Girl

Alice Boughton

This arresting portrait of a young woman in traditional Danish attire was taken around 1909, as Alice Boughton’s reputation for her pioneering photography was becoming known among New York’s elite. Boughton would go on to capture the faces of the famous as well as compose artistic scenes of her own design. Here, Boughton’s ability to ease her subjects into a sure sense of themselves is shown in the unidentified woman’s purposeful but relaxed posture, her expression, while shadowed, is still vulnerable, bearing an indiscernible mix of introspection and worn, familiar worry, evidence of a life that was not without hardship.

Alice Boughton’s contribution to photography and the inclusion of women as fine art photographers cannot be understated. The power of her work, emotionally raw, rare in its portrayal of the female figure not as a sexual object but as a part of the natural world at large, and her ability to connect with people set her apart from some of the leading male pioneers of the medium. Alfred Stieglitz, himself the founder of the Photo-Secessionist group dedicated to uplifting photography as a fine art at the turn of the 20th century, was in awe of Boughton’s work when he was introduced to her in 1902. His invitation to be a part of the new and somewhat controversial artists’ circle was instrumental in giving Boughton a voice in the arena of fine art photography, and she remained an inspiration to both female and male photographers after her death in 1943.