Partner Frances Benjamin Johnston
Queer Places:
536 5th Ave, New York, NY 10036, Stati Uniti
Mattie
Edwards Hewitt (1869–1956)
was an American photographer of architecture, landscape, and designs,
primarily on the East Coast. Initially, she associated with
Frances Benjamin Johnston, who later became her partner, living and
working with her from 1909 for 8 years. Together they also established a
firm called "Johnston-Hewitt Studio" in New York City in 1913 which
functioned till 1917. They became well known in the field of architectural
and landscape photography and took many pictures of famous buildings and
gardens which were titled "Miss Johnston and Mrs. Hewitt" or "Frances
Benjamin Johnston and Mattie Edwards Hewitt."[2][3]
After the partnership with Johnston broke up in 1917, Hewitt ventured on
her own and became famous in her own right as a commercial photographer. She
set up her business establishment in photography with specific orientation
to taking pictures for designers, architects, and landscape architects,
recording interior and exterior views of home and business houses, and
gardens. She continued in this profession until her death in Boston in 1956.[2]
A catalog of her work titled "Portrait of an Era in Landscape
Architecture: The Photographs of Mattie Edwards Hewitt" is available as an
exhibit catalog, (September 15 – November 30, 1983) in the "Wave Hill",
Bronx, New York.[3
Hewitt was born in October 1869 in Saint Louis, Missouri in a
middle-class family. After a period of studying art she married Arthur
Hewitt, a photographer. As his assistant, she was trained in principles of
photography involving processing and printing.[2]
She started her career in photography as a small operation in St. Louis,
Missouri where she lived and learned from the camera clubs and photography
journals which then flourished during the late 19th century. She was also
influenced by an article on photography by Frances Benjamin Johnston,
published in the Ladies Home Journal.
Her photography initially were on landscape, her home surroundings including
chickens in the barnyard, the cat and the dog.
During her visit to New York in 1901 to participate in the Pan-American
Exposition held in Buffalo, New York, Hewitt met Johnston, who was then a
famous photographer from Washington D.C.. Johnston made a profound influence
not only on Hewitt's photographic career but also on her personal life for
several years.[2]
She then became a fan of Johnston and started writing letters to her seeking
her help professionally and personally. Hewitt sought her advice on several
matters including providing a job opportunity for her husband with Lumière,
the French photographers and scientists, in his newly opened East Coast
office in New York. She sought Johnston's advice for creating a dark room in
her house, which however was built by her husband;
this dark room made with walls fixed with terracotta building paper had
enough shelves and space for two people to work freely.
From this dark room of her husband's studio she printed photographs taken by
Johnston.[7]
Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection/LOC cph.3a47220. Frances Benjamin Johnston, with Mattie, with a painted backdrop of the Cliff House in San Francisco, California, 1903
Hewitt's correspondence with Johnston, which was mostly one sided, was
quite sensuous with declaration of her love for Johnston.
Her letters to Johnston are part of the book titled "The Woman behind the
Lens: The Life and Work of Frances Benjamin Johnston" (1864–1952) by Bettina
Berch which also contain "epistolary exchanges of lady-love" letters of the
then many other famous women such as between
Virginia
Woolf and
Vita Sackville-West,
Eleanor Roosevelt and
Lorena Hickok,
Edna St. Vincent Millay and
Edith Wynne Matthison, and
Margaret Mead and
Ruth Benedict.
One of Hewitt's letters to Johnston said "I wonder why I expect you to
understand me better than most people – is it because I love you so?" Based
on these letters the author of the biography, asserts that the exchanges
were "unswervingly lesbian... hardly straight forward". However, some
scholars opine that such romantic exchange of letters was not unusual among
the woman of the 19th century and consider them as not sensual. But many
others feel that such writings are a "clue to a greater, if submerged,
lesbian subculture".[8]
Hewitt then divorced her husband Arthur Hewitt in 1909, and moved to New
York to work and live with Johnston.[2]
After her divorce, she was dependent on photography as a profession for her
living and pursued it with dedication, and had said "it is the most
fascinating of arts".
Her photographic career was a "transition from an amateur in the 19th
century to 20th century professional", when there was substantial innovation
in photographic equipment.
Though she shifted to New York in 1909, it was only in 1913 that she
established a photography firm, in partnership with Johnston, titled the
"Johnston-Hewitt Studio" in New York, with a specialty in architectural and
garden photography. While Johnston held the primary task of shooting for the
studio, Hewitt functioned in the studio as the darkroom assistant. She was
at this stage dependent on Johnston as her mentor. However, their
partnership broke up in 1917, for reasons unknown. Hewitt developed her own
professional skill in home and garden photography, and operated
independently.
By this time, she had a good clientele to pursue business on her own.[7]
With her office in New York City, she became a freelance photographer and
executed many assignments by taking pictures of mansions and gardens of rich
people of the East Coast. Her nephew Richard Averill Smith had also
associated with her on some of the assignments. Many of these pictures were
published in newspapers and magazines, along with articles on the mansions
in the New York Times, the Evening Post, House Beautiful, and House &
Garden, and Garden Magazine.[3]
In 1910, Hewitt had taken photographs of the Albert Boardman Estate in
Southampton which was published in Southampton Times in 1912 and again in
1916 which brought her professional skill to limelight. In all the
photographs she took, carrying heavy wooden cameras and wooden tripods, for
clients she also took additional pictures which she offered to newspapers
and magazines for publication as part of an article. She also maintained a
good record of negatives with names of clients, architects, and location.
She had also taken photographs for buildings of Carrère & Hastings who had
recommended her work to others.
In the words of Robin S. Karson, author of the book titled Fletcher
Steele, Landscape Architect: An Account of the Gardenmaker's Life, 1885–1971,
Hewitt was "one of the best known and most lyrical garden photographers of
her day."
Hewitt took photographs documenting the estate for the Paris Exhibition of
1930. These photographs have been said to "glimmer with drops of light
reflecting from shiny-leaved willows".
Leslie Rose Close, a painter and sculptor, wrote a thesis on Mattie
Edwards Hewitt for her master's degree from the New York University.[7]
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