Palmquist P. With Nature's Children: Emma B. Freeman (1880-1928) Camera And Brush

Interface California, 1976. — 140 p.Emma B. Freeman, like the half-Indian, half-white subjects in her romanticized photographs of Native Americans, was caught frequently between two worlds. Ultimately her art, and her strength, lay in the manner in which she combined the best elements of both. She was a renegade woman who defied the constraints of the male-dominated world of the early 1900's. She was a photographer intent not on realism but on poetry. She craved artistic recognition but chose to live much of her life in a cultural backwater, a white taking pictures of Indians. Derided as a Bohemian by small-town society, she made her studio a salon for outcasts. Though keen on social acceptance, she courted scandal and a subsequent adultery suit by having a highly publicized fling with an ex-governor of Illinois. As a photographer, she wavered between the extremes of artistic pretension and hard-headed photojournalism.The Indian photographs of Emma B. Freeman do not document the Native American heritage in faithful detail. Instead they express her idealized notions of the Indian as the embodiment of the mysteries of nature. Yet, during World War One, her pluck and daring while photographing a naval disaster off the California coast won her fame as an authentic journalist and earned her the title of "Official Government Photographer." Her series of Indian portraits remains her most noteworthy achievement. But these photographs grew from her probable misconceptions regarding the Indian's oneness with the universe and her own deep-seated need to identify with nature. Even nature sometimes proved inadequate for her - so she painted wilderness backdrops for her studio and, on at least one occasion, used a blond European model to pose as an Indian brave. Emma's romantic, artistically-conceived portraits were destined to become very popular, especially among those interested in obtaining fashionable images of themselves.