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1869? Photographer unknown: Oscar Lion Collection, New
York Public Library, ascribes it to E. F. Hunt, Camden, NJ, but
this seems too early for a Camden photo. Saunders #70.
Courtesy Gay Wilson Allen. The notebook referred to in #24
above also contains notes for a poem about a photograph
Whitman
refers to as "Tarisse's head," and in Whitman's 1867-1875
address
notebook, he records a "Mr. Leybold J. C. Tarisse 424
Penn av.
bet 4th & 6th sts." In an 1869 Washington Chronicle
article,
Whitman, describing the best photographs of himself, noted
that
"Mssrs. Seybold & Tarisse, on the Avenue, below Sixth,
have a
good head, just taken, very strong in shade and light."
The
notes for the poem suggest this might be the portrait
being
described: "From Shadows, deep & dark I peer Out." The
lines
in this MS poem could also refer to #30 or #31 above;
William
Kurtz was a master of shadow in his portraits, which
gained a
reputation of being in the "Rembrandt style." Saunders
notes
that Whitman did not care for this photo because it was
tinted (Whitman
disapproved of retouching negatives, since the
"photograph has
this advantage: it lets nature have its way").
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