Partner Clara Sipprell
Queer Places:
Dellwood Cemetery
Manchester, Bennington County, Vermont, USA
Clara Sipprell was a Canadian-born, early XX century photographer who lived most of her life in the United States. She was well known for her pictorial landscapes and for portraits of many famous actors, artists, writers and scientists. In 1915 Sipprell and long-time family friend and teacher Jessica Beers (1860–1942) moved to New York, where they shared an apartment on Morningside Drive. The big city better suited Sipprell’s growing bohemian tastes, which quickly came to include smoking cigars, and pipes; drinking bourbon, driving fast convertibles, and wearing capes, exotic jewelry and embroidered Slavic clothing. One friend recalled that she "did not make her work her life, but instead crafted a life that was a work of art." Within a few months Sipprell established a portrait studio and soon established a long list of clients due to her already well-known artistry. In the late 1910s Sipprell met a young Russian woman named Irina Khrabroff, who became her lifelong friend, traveling companion and, later, her dealer and business manager. When they first met Sipprell still shared her apartment with Beers, but when Beers moved out in 1923 Khrabroff moved in.
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