T. O'Conor Sloane Jr.

Thomas O’Conor Sloane, Jr. (1879–1963) was an American photographer.

Early life and career

Sloane was born in 1879 in

In Sloane's early twenties, he focused primarily on portraiture,[6] becoming a professional sometime thereafter^[7] and remaining active until the 1940s, when a diving accident severely impaired his eyesight.^[8][9]

Sloane experimented with gum bichromate, platinum, pigment, gaslight and

Sloane was perhaps an unlikely photographer, having graduated from Columbia University in New York City with a degree in electrical engineering like his father, Dr. T. O'Conor Sloane, a noted scientist, prodigious author of scientific books and articles, and the editor of Scientific American and Amazing Stories. Sloane briefly taught electrical engineering and was a research assistant at Columbia, also working independently as an electrical engineer, before becoming a professional photographer.^{[13][14][15][16]}

Photo-Secession movement

Sloane began exhibiting with Alfred Stieglitz's (Portrait of Thomas O'Conor Sloane Jr by Stieglitz, c. early 1900s) cadre of artistic amateur photographers at The Camera Club of New York^[17] and in 1902 was an original member of the influential Photo-Secession movement,^{[18][19][20][21][22]} with his work appearing in that year's National Arts Club exhibition.

Sloane maintained a long friendship with fellow Photo-Secessionist and

In addition to exhibitions in New York City, Sloane's photographs were exhibited in Chicago and Philadelphia in 1900, London in 1901 and Turin in 1902.^{[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]}

Sloane's photographs appeared in Photo Beacon (June 1900), Camera Notes (October 1900), Photographic Times (November 1900 and January 1904), The American Annual of Photography (1901) and Camera Work, No. 3 (July 1903).^[33][34]

An article he wrote, "Photography as a Craft," appeared in the January 1920 edition of The Photo-Miniature.^[35]

By 1931 Sloane had relocated to Westport, Connecticut where in 1935 he was commissioned by the Westport Preservation Alliance (WPA) Federal Arts Project to photograph the historic houses of Westport and environs.^{[36][37][38][39]} His photos were black and white using glass plate negatives. A gum print that he created during this time was shown at the Connecticut Tercentenary exhibition in New Haven.^[40]

Museums and collections

Sloane's photographic work can be found in art auctions,

Sloane married Gertrude Gabrielle Larned (October 4, 1878 - January 17, 1954) of Washington, D.C., an author best known for the children's book Fun with Folk Tales: Six Plays in Verse with Music and Songs (E. P. Dutton, 1942).^[58] Together they had four children, including T. O'Conor Sloane III, a senior editor at Doubleday. She passed away on January 17, 1954 in Norwalk, Connecticut.^[59]

Sloane's brother, John Eyre Sloane, a Columbia graduate and an airplane factory owner, married Thomas Edison's daughter Madeleine.

References