Exhibition Highlights

"There are those of us to whom the half-tones of nature, the shadows, the delicacies, the soft edges appeal, who want the glow, not the glare, of sunlight, who prefer tenderness to drama, and who like the imagination stirred rather than the sensibilities shocked."

These words, written by Giles Edgerton [Mary Fanton Roberts] in 1907 for The Craftsman, convey the great fascination and appeal of George Seeley's photographic work during his time. Today, when viewing the images within his Stockbridge portfolio, one can still be mesmerized by the sensibilities of the spirit behind them. They are at once familiar and yet otherworldly; their small size and lack of sharp focus draw the viewer to them. Visual poems, these images were carefully crafted by the artist to convey his intellectual and emotional commitment to beauty, whether it was contained in the reflective stillness of the Housatonic River, in an arrangement of lines formed by the trees in Bowker Woods, or even in the play of light and shadow on a still life. When one is caught in the spell of these images, it is difficult to remember that each of them incorporates myriad artistic and technical choices that were the result of careful consideration, much experimentation, and hard work.