[An archive of artistic photographs of plantation homes and other southern subjects].

Natchez, Mississippi; Louisiana; Charleston, South Carolina; Georgia, 1939–40. 4to photo album (13” x 10”), cork covers, cord tie at spine, front cover with raised cork initials reading “ACS.” 27 silver print photos, 6.375” x 4.5” to 9.25” x 7.75”, mounted on tan leaves, all photos with captions in pencil, 5 blank leaves; 23 loose silver prints, 6.75” x 4.75” to 13” x 10” plus margins (in a few cases), 7 silver prints, 7” x 7” to 9” x 7.75”, mounted on white paperboard, titled, signed, and dated either 1939 or 1940, in pencil below image. 59 photos in all, including four duplicates and one image in two different sizes. CONDITION: Photos generally very good, a few images with minor scuffs or stains, large portion of upper right corner of mount for one photo broken away and lacking; album covers chipped at spine and covers essentially detached, loss to upper right corner of front cover.

An archive of nearly sixty artistic photos of plantation houses and other historic structures and landscapes in Mississippi, South Carolina, and Louisiana, by an essentially unknown but talented Texas woman photographer mainly working in the pictorialist style, including both an album and an assortment of images both mounted and loose. Many of the photographs are reminiscent of the work of Clarence John Laughlin, especially his less surreal architectural images, as found in his book New Orleans and Its Living Past (1941).

The album begins with a series of photographs taken in the city of Charleston and the surrounding area (fourteen photos), including images of doorways, wrought iron gates, and homes; the public market building; Magnolia Gardens and its tranquil ponds; Middleton Place; Cypress Gardens; Richmond Plantation; and the William Gibbes House. These are followed by nine photos of Louisiana plantation subjects, including six of Oak Alley (situated on the west bank of the Mississippi River and named after its canopied path created by parallel rows of southern oaks); two images of the “Garconnière Burnside” (the Garconnière at Houmans House in Burnside, Louisiana, photographed by Walker Evans just a few years before); and a shot of the ruinous Belle Grove (photographed by Laughlin in 1940). The album concludes with images of the houses Rosalie, Linden, and Dunleith in Natchez and a photo of flowering dogwood in Georgia. All twenty-seven images in the album are captioned in pencil.

The non-album photos, were taken, or appear to have been taken, in the same locales as those in the album (the loose ones are not captioned). A handful of these are duplicates.

Anne Tenison Craddock Schoellkopf (1909–2007) was a prominent citizen of Dallas, Texas and a noted supporter of medicine and the arts. Her husband, Fred Schoelkopf, succeeded his father as president of G. H. Schoellkopf Co., a saddle manufacturer founded in 1869, and served as a director of First National Bank and Industrial Insurance Co. As evidenced by the photographs offered here, Mrs. Schoelkopf took up the practice of photography as a young woman (she was approximately thirty when these photos were taken), and traveled throughout the south taking photographs on at least one occasion. We find no evidence that she belonged to any of the photo clubs of the era or exhibited her work, but further research may reveal otherwise.

A captivating photo archive by a little-known but talented Texas woman photographer.

REFERENCES: “$100,000 bequest from Anne Craddock Schoellkopf establishes student scholarship fund at UT Southwestern,” Southwestern Medical Center News at utswmed-ir.tdl.org.