USA
(Fred Holland Day / Science & Society Picture Library / Getty)
Fred Holland Day didn’t have to work; his father was a wealthy merchant in Boston, USA. Using his financial means, Day co-founded publishing imprint Copeland and Day, releasing almost 100 titles in six years during the 1890s. Included on its list was Salome by Oscar Wilde, illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley, to whom Day was a significant patron.
While a large number of Day’s photographs were, like this one, of young men, there is no evidence to suggest that he had any form of relationship with his models. Day regarded photography as a fine art and he tended towards images that exhibited strong mythological or allegorical themes. For his most renowned work, ‘The Seven Last Words’, showing the seven last words of Christ, Day was his own model, growing out his hair and starving his body to achieve the effect he sought.
‘No, let me repeat, that to produce art with a camera just as much serious thought, just as much hard study, just as much rigorous training, are necessary as to produce the same end, through any other medium, and perhaps a little more.’
F. Holland Day, ‘The Virginia enterprise’, February 2,1900
