George Seeley

Born in Stockbridge, MA in 1880, George H. Seeley was a student of painting and drawing in Boston when he met Fred Holland Day, who introduced him to the pictorial possibilities of photography.

His debut came in 1904, when Seeley exhibited 14 photographs in the First American Photographic Salon in New York. A reviewer enthused: "Mr. Seeley is the new man for whom we are always on the lookout, and his advent among Pictorialists will be the sensation of the year." The statement proved true. Critical of the exhibition but supportive of Seeley's work, Alfred Stieglitz invited Seeley to join the Photo-Secession. Subsequently, his work was seen at the group’s Little Galleries in New York on many occasions, including members’ shows, a two-person exhibition with Adolf de Meyer in 1907, and a solo show in February 1908. Stieglitz also included Seeley’s photographs in Secession exhibitions at Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1906, New York’s National Arts Club in 1909 and Buffalo’s Albright Art Gallery in 1910.

After a break with Stieglitz's group, declining interest in the Pictorialist aesthetic and the increasing unavailability of platinum paper after World War I contributed to the demise of Seeley's photographic career. He continued to exhibit his work into the 1930s, although he had practically ceased to make new work.

An amateur ornithologist who was active in his church, Seeley took up oil painting in his later years and was a correspondent for the local Stockbridge, Massachusetts, newspaper. Seeley died in Stockbridge, on December 21, 1955.

His work is the collections of the Getty Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, NY, University of Texas, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, New Orleans Museum of Art, Seattle Art Museum, and many others.

Submitted by Contemporary Works/Vintage Works