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Guide to the Matthews (Kate) (1870-1956) Collection,
ULSC_matthews Guide to the Matthews (Kate) (1870-1956) Collection, ca. 1890-1940 Processed by Susan Finley; machine-readable finding aid created by Rachel I. Howard Special Collections 2007 Special Collections University of Louisville Ekstrom Library Louisville, Kentucky 40292 USA Phone: (502) 852-6752 Fax: (502) 852-8734 Email: Special.Collections@louisville.edu URL: http://louisville.edu/library/ekstrom/special/ University of Louisville. All rights reserved. Machine-readable finding aid derived from typescript by rekeying. Date of source: 2007-12-10 Description is in English. Guide to the Matthews (Kate) (1870-1956) Collection, ca. 1890-1940 Contact Information Special Collections University of Louisville Ekstrom Library Louisville, Kentucky 40292 USA Phone: (502) 852-6752 Fax: (502) 852-8734 Email: Special.Collections@louisville.edu URL: http://louisville.edu/library/ekstrom/special/ Processed by: Susan Finley Finding aid completed by: 2007-12-10 Encoded by: Rachel I. Howard Copyright 2007 University of Louisville. All rights reserved. 431 online items Matthews (Kate) (1870-1956) Collection, ca. 1890-1940 Matthews, Kate, 1870-1956 The physical collection consists of 362 original prints; 76 original negatives; one original painting; and copies of at least 38 other distinct photographic images attributed to Matthews. The materials are in English. Kate Seston Matthews was born in New Albany, Indiana, but spent most of her life in Pewee Valley, Kentucky, where she began taking photographs in the 1880s. Matthews relied almost exclusively on her own community and acquaintances as subjects -- a favor she returned by reproducing and signing her photographs for friends and family. While she is best known for her photographs depicting characters in the Little Colonel series of children's books written by her friend and neighbor Annie Fellows Johnston, Matthews also created tableaux vivants, or living pictures, based on nursery rhymes, fairy tales, poetry, and other works of art, and she captured on film an idyllic view of the people, architecture, and landscape of her in the small, rural community near Louisville, Kentucky. University of Louisville Libraries, Special Collections. Much of Kate Matthews' work was lost a few years after her death when a fire destroyed Clovercroft, the Matthews' family home in Pewee Valley. Fortunately, in the early 1960s, Robert J. Doherty, then Curator of the University of Louisville's Photographic Archives, launched a program to locate and catalog as much of Matthews' remaining work as possible. Doherty and Richard Duncan, a Pewee Valley resident and partner in Kentucky's leading photographic studio, Caulfield & Shook, Inc., initially made prints and copy negatives from glass negatives and original prints which Kate Matthews had given to friends and relatives. Over time several individuals, including Matthews' great-nephew, Matthews Fletcher, and Johnston's stepdaughter, Mary Johnston, generously donated many of those original items along with other albums and hand-tinted prints to the university's Photographic Archives in Ekstrom Library's Special Collections. Through donation and purchase, the University of Louisville now houses the largest extant collection of Kate Matthews' work. Collection is open for research. For further information about permissions, use, and ordering reproductions, contact Special Collections, Ekstrom Library, University of Louisville (http://library.louisville.edu/ekstrom/special/). To cite an image from this collection, please use the format: [Image Number], Kate Matthews Collection, Special Collections, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky. [identification of item], Matthews (Kate) (1870-1956) Collection, University of Louisville Special Collections. Art and photography Johnston, Annie F. (Annie Fellows), 1863-1931. Little Colonel series Pewee Valley (Ky.)--Social life and customs--Pictorial works Photograph albums Portrait photographs Tableaux Upper class families--Kentucky--Pewee Valley--Pictorial works Pewee Valley (Ky.) Kate Seston Matthews was born in New Albany, Indiana, on August 13, 1870. After a childhood illness weakened one of her eyes and left her very frail, Lucien G. and Charlotta Anne Clark Matthews arranged for their youngest daughter to be educated at home while her seven siblings attended school. Sometime between 1880 and 1895, the Matthews family moved to Oldham County, Kentucky, where they eventually bought a fourteen-room Victorian house and roughly twelve acres on Ashwood Avenue in Pewee Valley. Kate lived in the family home known as Clovercroft until she died on July 5, 1956. Kate Matthews was introduced to photography by the husband of her oldest sister, Lillian, while she was spending a summer with the couple and their children in Vermont. Charles Barrows Fletcher, a camera enthusiast, noticed that the usually shy and quiet teenager was curious about all aspects of photography. He mentioned Kate's interest in a letter to her father and suggested that it would be nice if she had her own camera. On his next business trip to New York, Lucien Matthews bought his youngest daughter the finest professional camera he could find. Despite numerous technological advancements in photography over the next several decades, Matthews used that big bellows-style camera with glass plate negatives, black hood, and tripod for the rest of her life. She experimented with cameras that captured snapshots via automatic shutters, but she considered her photography an art and preferred to control light exposure with a lens cap. She also controlled every step of the development process in her own darkroom. She hand-tinted some photographs and frequently gave friends and family signed prints or sent them postcards made from prints. Matthews' devotion to photography was considered somewhat eccentric in the small, traditional community of Pewee Valley. She would load the large camera, tripod, and costumes into her pony cart along with relatives, neighbors, or visiting children she persuaded to serve as models. Then she would drive to preselected locations where they recreated scenes from fairy tales and story books. Kate's niece, Lillian Fletcher Brackett, described her aunt as an artist who was extremely focused and somewhat "dreamy" when her "genius was burning." When a writer from the Louisville Courier-Journal asked Kate about her technique, she said "I am very conscious of light. . . I watch it from day to day and when it is where I need it, I use it." In an era when few women ventured into photography, Matthews won prizes at the Kentucky State Fair, in contests in Chicago, Columbus, and Pittsburgh, and in other regional and national competitions. She had photographs published in The American Annual of Photography seventeen times between 1896 and 1923. Her photos also ran in The Youth's Companion, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Ladies' Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, Illustrated American, Forward, The Brown Book of Boston and Burr McIntosh Monthly. In 1895, Southern Magazine featured Matthews along with sculptor Enid Yandell, in an article celebrating young women artists. Her photographs were occasionally used in advertising for products such Jersey Cream Toilet Soap and Wolf Pen Mill flour in Kentucky. Kate Matthews' most recognized photographs are those illustrating The Little Colonel series of books written by her friend and neighbor, Annie Fellows Johnston. The series, about a fictional character named Lloyd Sherman living in Lloydsboro Valley, is based at least in part on real people and places in Pewee Valley, Kentucky. Matthews herself was portrayed as the character Miss Katharine Marks, and she photographed many of the other real-life characters acting as their counterparts. A number of these pictures were published in books and on postcards by L.C. Page & Company. Matthews seldom ventured far from home, but she found strength and support through her connections with a larger world. She read the best journals and her work reveals knowledge of trends and artistic movements both in the United States and abroad. Unfortunately her papers and most of her prints and negatives were lost in a fire shortly after her death, but she is known to have corresponded with editors of a number of photography journals and to have sought guidance from recognized leaders in the field, including Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen. While many of her images may be classified as "tableaux vivants" inspired by literature and popular writings of the time, Kate also photographed real people, architecture, and landscape of Pewee Valley. Her work has been described as sentimental, charming, late Victorian, and an idealistic representation of "the gentle, romantic mood of life in the aristocratic, southern town of Pewee Valley, Kentucky." Critics, however, note that her subjects are seldom smiling and say she appeared to be more interested in costumes, props, and staging than the emotions or humanity of the people she depicted. Matthews' photographs have been exhibited at the University of Louisville (1956, 1988, and 2007-2008), the Hunt-Morgan House (1956), the Whitney Museum of American Art (1974-1975), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1975), the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion of Norwalk, Connecticut (1987), and Atlanta's High Museum of Art (1996), among other places. Her works are also in permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art in London, the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House in Rochester, and Princeton University. The largest collection of Kate Matthews prints and negatives is housed in the Photographic Archives in Ekstrom Library's Special Collections at the University of Louisville. Through donation and purchase, the University of Louisville now houses the largest extant collection of Kate Matthews' work, with over 760 items including more than 362 original prints; seventy-six original negatives; one original painting; and copies of at least thirty-eight other distinct photographic images attributed to Matthews. The digital collection at http://digital.library.louisville.edu/collections/matthews consists of 431 items, one of which is a four-page compound object, for a total of 434 digital images. Images known to be the work of another member of Matthews' family, as well as duplicate images found in more than one format or accession, have been eliminated from the digital collection, resulting in a smaller item count than that of the physical collection described above. Every image in the physical collection attributed to Kate Matthews is presented at least once in the digital collection. Digital images with multiple representations in the physical collection are noted, with their image numbers listed in the "Related Images" field of the corresponding metadata records. In general, two or more images made from the same negative are included in this digital collection only if they differ in color treatment or layout (e.g., vertical vs. horizontal). Related Material The University of Louisville Digital Collections website provides access to these images and associated information. Access images in University of Louisville Digital Collections Sources Used Brackett, Lillian Fletcher. "A Recollection of Kate Matthews, 1870-1956." Presented to the Oldham County Historical Society (May 31, 1974). Campbell, Norma Prendergast. "Kate Matthews, Photographer." Kentucky Review, 1 (Spring 1980): 11-28. Cornett, Susanna. "Picturing Times Gone By." The Louisville Courier-Journal Neighborhoods (February 24, 1988): 1-3. Courteau, Connie. "As the Years Pass By She Stays in Focus." The Courier-Journal Magazine (September 19, 1954): 53-57. Johnston, Annie Fellows. The Land of the Little Colonel: Reminiscence and Autobiography, L. C. Page & Co., Boston, 1929. "Kate Matthews and the Little Colonel." Louisville, Ky.: Lithocraft, 1963. Peterson, Christian A. Index to the American Annual of Photography, Christian A. Peterson, Minneapolis, 1996. "Remembrance of Things Past." The Louisville Times (January 8, 1963): B1.