Rose Clark - Misses Clark and Wade

Misses Clark and Wade

For reasons that have never been explained, Clark and Wade began exhibiting and publishing photos under their joint names beginning in 1899. For many years it was assumed that Clark was the artist who took all of the photographs and Wade was the technician who developed and printed them. Clark herself alluded to this type of arrangement in a letter to Stieglitz in 1900: “Mrs. Wade is very dilatory – and in order to get the photographs you ask for… I will have to prod her daily.” However, in a letter to Frances Benjamin Johnston that same year, Clark said “Both Miss Wade and myself have used cameras for perhaps ten years or more, but it is only two years ago that we took up portrait work as a business.”

The concept of the artist/technician split in their partnership also might have come from the fact that Clark also had several solo exhibitions while Wade exhibited very little under her own name. There are, however, indications that Wade made aesthetic decisions as well as technical ones. She clearly had interest in and knowledge of aesthetics, and in several of her articles she gives advice on artistic direction. In addition, at least one article featured work under her name alone along with others under their joint names.

Clark and Wade first exhibited under their joint names at shows at the Buffalo Society of Artists and the New York Camera Club in 1899. Over the next decade their photos were featured in major exhibitions around the world, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Photo Club de Paris, Pan-American Exposition, Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.

In 1902 Stieglitz included a print by Clark and Wade in Series 2 of the landmark portfolio American Pictorial Photography. Printed in a limited edition of 150 copies, the portfolio was intended to show only the best photography according to Stieglitz’s discerning eye.

Their collaboration apparently ended around 1910. The reason for the dissolution of their joint effort is not known, although it might have been due to a change in the health of Wade, who died five years later.