Artist

Bertha E. Jaques

born Covington, OH 1863-died Chicago IL 1941
Media - 1941.6.1 - SAAM-1941.6.1_1 - 963
Nelly McKenzie Tolman, Mrs. Bertha E. Jaques, 1936, watercolor on ivory, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Bertha E. Jaques, 1941.6.1
Also known as
  • Bertha Clausen
  • Bertha Evelyn Jaques
  • Bertha Jaques
Born
Covington, Ohio, United States
Died
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Biography

Jaques was already a respected printmaker when she began making cyanotype photograms of wildflowers. An active member of the Wild Flower Preservation Society, she created over a thousand of these botanical images. [See Dandelion Seeds, Taraxacium Officinale, SAAM, 1994.91.89] Made without a camera by placing objects directly on sensitized paper and exposing it to light, the photogram is the least industrialized type of photography. Because prints were easy to produce by this method, it achieved wide popularity. Graphic artists often chose this form of print because of its rich Prussian blue color. Aligned with the antimodernist views of the late Victorian Arts and Crafts movement, Jaques's work reflects a reverence for commonplace elements of nature and the beautifully crafted object.

Merry A. Foresta American Photographs: The First Century (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996)

Exhibitions

An artwork image of a woman
Sargent, Whistler, and Venetian Glass: American Artists and the Magic of Murano 
October 8, 2021May 8, 2022
This exhibition brings to life the Venetian glass revival of the nineteenth century on the famed island of Murano and the artistic experimentation the city inspired for artists such as John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler.