Frances McLaughlin-Gill

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Frances McLaughlin-Gill
Born
Frances McLaughlin

(1919-09-22)September 22, 1919
Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
DiedOctober 23, 2014(2014-10-23) (aged 95)
Other namesFranny McLaughlin
OccupationPhotographer
Years active1941–2011
Known forFirst female photographer of Vogue
Relatives

Frances McLaughlin-Gill (1919–2014) was an American photographer and the first female fashion photographer under contract with Vogue. After two decades in the fashion industry, she worked as an independent film producer for a decade making commercials and films. One of her films won the Gold Medal at the 1969 International Films and TV Festival of New York. In her later career, she published several collections both with her sister and in collaboration with other authors.

Early life[edit]

Frances McLaughlin was born on September 22, 1919, in Brooklyn, New York[1] to Kathryn and Frank McLaughlin. She was the twin sister of Kathryn Abbe.[2] Her father died when the twins were three months old and the family relocated to Wallingford, Connecticut, where they completed their schooling.[3] Frances graduated from Lyman Hall High School as the class valedictorian and Kathryn was salutatorian in 1937.[2] The twins then enrolled in Pratt Institute to study photography,[3] graduating in 1941. That same year, both entered the Prix de Paris contest sponsored by Vogue[4] and were among the five finalists.[3]

Career[edit]

McLaughlin began working as a stylist at Montgomery Ward and as a photography assistant until 1943.[3] That year, photographer Toni Frissell introduced her to Alexander Liberman, Vogue′s art director, who signed McLaughlin under contract, becoming their first contracted female fashion photographer.[4] Liberman thought McLaughlin had a fresh approach. To him, her directness and spontaneity made McLaughlin an ideal photographer, because her images were less posed and more natural than many fashion photographers working at that time. She began on shoots with junior models working for Vogue′s Glamour Magazine which was aimed at younger viewers and was able to capture movement in ways that had not been done before. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, McLaughlin produced some of the strongest images that appeared in the American edition of Vogue.[3] In addition to fashion photographs, her images included celebrity photos, as well as still lifes for editorials and covers of House & Garden.[5] In 1948, she married the photographer Leslie Gill, who was known as one of the first photographers to use color film.[6]

One of the high points of her career, was McLaughlin's work at the 1952 Paris Fashion Week. In 1954, though she continued working for Glamour, House & Garden and Vogue, McLaughlin became a freelance photographer with Condé Nast Publications. She was a regular contributor to British Vogue throughout the Sixties.[3] Gill died suddenly in 1958,[6] and it was after his death, that McLaughlin began hyphenating her surname.[3] The following year, the sisters worked together on a collection of children's photographs that were featured in Modern Photography.[7] Between 1964 and 1973, McLaughlin-Gill made television commercials and films as an independent film producer and director.[5] Her film Cover Girl: New Face in Focus, about Model of the Year, Elaine Fulkerson’s journey to become a fashion model, won the Gold Medal at the 1969 International Films and TV Festival of New York.[8] Then in the late 1970s, she began teaching photography seminars at Manhattan's School of Visual Arts.[5]

McLaughlin-Gill began publishing some of her later works in book form after 1976. Some of her best known collections were Women Photograph Men published in 1976[3] and Twins on Twins which was published in 1981 with her twin sister, Kathryn Abbe.[9] She also made photographs for several author's books, including a book about body language, Face Talk, Hand Talk, Body Talk (1977) by Sue Castle[10] and Jane Fearer Safer's Spirals From the Sea: An Anthropological Look at Shells (1983).[11] In 1984, she prepared photographs for a retrospective exhibit of her husband's works for the New Orleans Museum of Art.[12] In 1995, an exhibit of her photographs was held at Hamilton's Gallery in London[3] and in 2011, she and her sister published their final book together, Twin Lives in Photography.[1] The sisters were the subject of a 2009 documentary,Twin Lenses produced by Nina Rosenblum, which highlighted their pioneering roles in photography and included interviews with the twins.[13] McLaughlin-Gill died on October 23, 2014.[4]

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ a b Karitevlis 2014.
  2. ^ a b The Brooklyn Daily Eagle 1937, p. 11.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harrison 1995.
  4. ^ a b c Borrelli-Persson 2014.
  5. ^ a b c Hostetler 1999.
  6. ^ a b Goldsmith 1984, p. 88.
  7. ^ The Amarillo Globe-Times 1959, p. 20.
  8. ^ Faxon & Blint 1972, p. 30.
  9. ^ New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung 1981, p. 26.
  10. ^ Lebanon Daily News 1977, p. 15.
  11. ^ Smith 1983, p. 79.
  12. ^ Goldsmith 1984, pp. 88–89.
  13. ^ Mitchell 2009, p. 8.

Bibliography[edit]

  • Borrelli-Persson, Laird (November 10, 2014). "Remembering Vogue Fashion Photographer Frances McLaughlin-Gill". Vogue. New York, New York. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  • Faxon, Pookie; Blint, Mary, eds. (1972). "Films by and/or about Women, 1972" (PDF). Education Resources Information Center. Berkeley, California: Women’s History Research Center, Inc. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  • Goldsmith, Arthur, ed. (September 1984). "The Elegant Eye of Leslie Gill". Popular Photography. 91 (9). New York, New York: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company: 71, 88–89. ISSN 1542-0337. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  • Harrison, Martin (April 1, 1995). "Fashion—Classic camera". The Independent. London, England. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  • Hostetler, Lisa (1999). "Frances McLaughlin-Gill". New York, New York: International Center of Photography. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  • Karitevlis, Chris (January 23, 2014). "Kathryn Abbe, Photographer". The East Hampton Star. East Hampton, New York. Archived from the original on 5 April 2014. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  • Mitchell, John E. (13 March 2009). "Double Exposure". North Adams Transcript. North Adams, Massachusetts. p. 8. Retrieved 13 October 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  • Smith, Judith P. (January 30, 1983). "Spirals from the Sea". Arizona Daily Star. Tucson, Arizona. Retrieved 27 April 2016 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  • "Former Boro Twins Graduation Leaders". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Brooklyn, New York. June 30, 1937. Retrieved 27 April 2016 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  • "Modern Photography". Amarillo, Texas: The Amarillo Globe-Times. October 2, 1959. Retrieved 27 April 2016 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  • "Twins: The pleasure of coming two by two". New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung. New Braunfels, Texas. May 31, 1981. Retrieved 27 April 2016 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  • "Women in the News". Lebanon, Pennsylvania: Lebanon Daily News. June 17, 1977. Retrieved 27 April 2016 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon

Further reading[edit]

  • Rosenblum, Naomi (2014). A history of women photographers. Abbeville.
  • Take one then, take one now : [exhibition] November 30 to December 23, 1988, Washburn Gallery, New York. New York: Washburn Gallery. 1988.
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