Essay - Female Artists Who Worked in the American West the Subject...

Female Artists who worked in the American West

The subject of female artists working in ***** American ***** has often been overlooked due to pervasive Western male stereotypes. These stereotypical images include popular media overlays of cowboys, male hero icons and ***** activities. Yet, the environment ***** the American West has been ***** inspiration for many American female artists. One of these is the landscape pho*****grapher, Laura Gilpin. *****'s relation to ***** ***** and the connection of that particular l*****scape to her work is obvious from the following quotation:

What I consider really fine landscapes are very few and far between," Laura Gilpin wrote to a friend in 1956. "I consider this field one of the gre*****test challenges and it is ***** principal reason I live in the West. I am willing to drive ***** miles, expose a lot of film, w*****it untold hours, camp out to be somew*****e at sunrise, make many return trips to get what ***** am after." (Women Artists of ***** American West)

Laura Gilpin's work was deeply concerned *****h and intimately related to the landscape and atmosphere ***** the South West. "No o*****r woman in the hist*****y of American photography so devoted herself to chronicl*****g the *****. Others photographed the land, but none can be regarded as a ********** photographer with a sustained body of work documenting the physical terrain. (ibid)

In an assessment ***** her work it is important to mention that her approach ***** landscape photography differs in relevant ways ***** the ***** of male photographers who documented the s*****e *****. Essentially, ***** quality of her work brings sensitivity to the landscape, not just as an *****olated object but in the way that the landscape related to and shaped the human activity ***** ***** environment. Her concern ***** the interaction between the ***** and human life was one of the aspects that distinguished her art from other photographers ***** the *****, including Henry Jackson or Timothy O'Sullivan.

Gilpin's ***** provides us with a "peopled l*****ndscape with a rich history and tradition of its own, an ***** that shaped and molded the *****s of its inhabitants." (ibid) She was also a highly individualistic *****ist and had ***** influences except the landscape and the natural environment. As an extension ***** the ethos of her landscape images a*****her important aspect to her work were ***** photographs depicting the indigenous inhabitants of ***** West. Her portraits showed an acute ***** to the individual nature of her subjects. To a large extent it could be argued that Gilpin's work counters the stereotypical view ***** the native ***** of the region. ***** work, in particular her portraits, run counter ***** the ***** notion of the 'fierce savage'.

The work of Gilpin and ********** reflected an interest in ***** domestic, the daily, the "real" American Indian behind the stereotype. Although tinged with placid romanticism and perhaps even tranquil pictorialism, such portrayals did preserve ***** of native cultures. Moreover, ***** representations of American *****s presented the public with the image of