Jane Reece

American, 1868 - 1961

(not assigned)Dayton, Ohio, USA

SchoolPictorialism

Biography"Jane Reece was born in a log cabin near West Jefferson, Ohio in the late 1860s. She first became interested in photography as an art form in 1903 in Southern Pines, North Carlona where she was recuperating from spinal meningitis. Jane Reece opened her first studio in Dayton in 1904. In 1909 [she] went to New York to spend a year working and studying with the Photo-Secessionists, the leading American artistic photographers. After this she returned to Dayton and opened a second studio where she continued her artistic photography and resumed her commercial portrait work. In between 1918 and 1922 Jane Reece worked out of a studio in Dayton's Arcade…In 1922 Jane went to Paris, returning in 1923 to open her fourth studio in the Chateau Apartments. In 1924 Jane moved into her fifth and last studio on Riverview Avenue. This remodeled fire station was Jane's home and studio for the remainder of her life, even though she gave up photography in 1944 due to failing eyesight and poor health." (Excerpted from Jane Reece (ca. 1869-1961) Dayton Photographer, (exhibition brochure from DAI and Wright State Library), 1986)

Dayton"s Jane Reece is an internationally recognized leader in the establishment of photography as a fine art form through her innovative use of papers, methods of printing and use of camera focus. She opened her first studio in 1904 and always worked in a creative and highly individualistic manner. Reece was renowned for photographic silhouettes which she called Camera Cameos. By the 1920"s she traveled extensively in the United States and abroad, sought after by prominent persons due to the quality of her work, always bringing out the personality and expressions of the sitter.

For Miss Reese, every portrait was "an artistic arrangement," the achievement of which was most demanding on both model and photographer.

Reece became the first woman portraitist to be admitted to the Photographers Association of America and received the organization"s top award in 1907. She continued to receive numerous honors in the many competitive and invitational exhibits in which she participated. Declining eyesight and hearing forced her to stop shooting in the mid-1940s.

Her entire collection of nearly 400 prints, as well as all her medals and awards, were donated to the Dayton Art Institute in 1952. The Institute held a major exhibit and catalog of her work for March 18 - June 11, 1995, titled, The Soul Unbound: Photographs by Jane Reece (1868-1961).

www.odjfs.state.oh.us/women/halloffame/bio.asp?ID=253 (Accessed Feb 15, 2012)

Person TypeIndividual

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