Sipprell, Clara E. (Clara Estelle), 1885-1975

American photographer.

Photographer.

Clara E. Sipprell (1885-1975) was a Canadian-American photographer, known for her landscapes and for portraits of famous actors, artists, writers and scientists.

Sipprell was born in Canada, a posthumous child with five brothers. Her widowed mother had to work to support the family, and Clara lived with her grandparents until she was old enough to go to school. Henry, the next to eldest, went to Buffalo, New York, where he found work and soon drew the rest of the family after him. The eldest boy, Frank, became a photographer and soon had a shop of his own.

Clara spent her free time in her brother's shop. At the age of sixteen she left school and devoted her entire time to what was to become her life's work. For ten years she assisted her brother Frank, learning photographic techniques during the period of the glass plate and platinum paper. When artificial lighting began to be used, her brother adopted it, but Clara stuck to the old ways. By doing so, she was setting up her own standards and establishing her own ideas of what a photograph should be. She has never used artificial lighting, believing that natural light would give the result she preferred. She does not enlarge, nor does she crop her photographs to manipulate her composition; implicitly the composition must be complete before the picture is made. It is claimed also that she does not retouch her negatives, although there is some evidence in the collection to the contrary.

Her early exhibitions were at the Buffalo Camera Club at a time when its membership was closed to women; one year she won half the prizes offered. Her first New York show was at Teachers College, Columbia University, and she subsequently opened a studio in Greenwich Village. The work of several New York photographers taught her much, she says; Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Dr. Arnold Genthe, Max Weber, Clarence White, Gertrude Kasebier, and Alice Boughton were among them. She became a member of the Pictorial Photographers of America, the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, and the Arts Club of Washington.

A Russian friend arranged for her to photograph Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theatre troupe, the first of a number of seminal opportunities for her. A trip to Vermont opened up further vistas for her, and she engaged a studio in the Connecticut River Valley village of Thetford which she maintained for seventeen summers. When her partner married a Yugoslav, she was introduced to that country as a subject for her photographs. Her god-daughter, Nina, the child of this marriage, became a subject of constant interest. Her friends planned a trip to Sweden for her in 1928, arranging opportunities for her there which included access to the Royal Palace, and photographs of King Gustav and other members of the Swedish royal family were the result.

Many famous personalities came to her for portraits. Amoung these were Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Edwin Markham, and Pearl Buck as well as the musicians and composers contained in this collection.

During the 1920's and '30's, Clara Sipprell often received prizes in various national and international exhibits which included her work in landscapes and still lifes as well as portraits. One of her cityscapes, "New York-Old and New", was one of the first photographs aquired by the Museum of Modern Art in 1932.

The move of her summer studio to Manchester Center, Vermont, from Thetford Hill came about largely through her friendship with Dorothy Canfield Fisher, the writer, who wrote the first publicity for her after the move. Annual trips to Spain and Portugal, Italy, Greece, Japan, Great Britain, France, and to visit friends in Yugoslavia provided new experiences and new subjects for her camera. A collection of sixty photographs, which included several taken as a result of these trips as well as many portraits of those whom she regards as the "great ones", was chosen for exhibition at Syracuse University in 1960. Miss Sipprell died in 1975 at the age of 89.

Cf. Elizabeth Gray Vining, "Introduction" to Moment of light, photographs of Clara Sipprell, New York, John Day Company, c1966.