Doris Ulmann, American Portraits (review)

other—for 37 years. Then, on an afternoon in June, sun-tanned and smiling, suddenly he sank onto the grass beside his garden ... We met in a garden and we parted in a garden ... He left on one of the few journeys we have not taken together." Winner of Berea College's 1985 Weatherford Award for Appalachian literature, Last One Home is the seventh of John EhIe's novels to be set in his native Western North Carolina mountains. Almost too much like Lion On The Hearth, Last One Home is the story of farm people drawn to Asheville by commerce; this, time, Pink Wright discovers life insurance and builds a financial empire. EhIe works in much early 1900s Asheville history—there is a sarcastic look at the city's development as a resort area, and one of Hallie Wright's contemporaries is young Thomas Wolfe. Last One Home is not the spellbinding story EhIe gave us in The Journey OfAugust King and The Road, but Last One Home is must reading for those of us who are longtime fans of John EhIe. —Garry Barker Featherstone, David. Doris Ulmann, American Portraits. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985. Her own motivations were to express "the profounder meanings that lurk in wrinkled brows and bowed shoulders." —Hamlin Garland 1927 Garland's observation as noted in David Featherstone's Doris Ulmann, American Portraits sets the tenor for this examination of an artist's search for "types" in photographic portraiture. While some have described Ulmann as a documentarían, and others a pictorialist , Featherstone asserts that in the search for American "types" Ulmann functioned more as an ethnographer, "seeking to describe what existed and serving as a collector of raw sociological data." Rather than subject the reader to a diatribe of socioideomatic jargon however, the author instead allows Doris Ulmann to present her own views using a variety of excerpts from interviews and correspondence. The results are often fascinating as in this description of the picture-taking process: "Whenever I am working on a portrait I try to know the individuality or real character of my sitter and, by understanding him, succeed in making him think of the things that are of vital interest to him. My best pictures are always taken when I succeed in establishing a bond of sympathy with my sitter. When there is the slightest suggestion of antagonism, then my best efforts are of no avail." In addition to discussing the motivating factors in the artist's search for "types," Featherstone takes the time to address issues concerning the relationship between Ulmann and her close friend and traveling companion for nearly a decade, John Jacob Niles. Contained also are accounts of Ulmann's many photographic excursions including her trips to South Carolina to complete the photographs for Julia Peterkin's depiction of South Carolina Blacks, Roll Jordan Roll. Featherstone includes references throughout the essay 74 followed by an excellent oibliography. To be commended are those involved with the design, composition, and printing of this book. Not only is the text attractive, it reads easily as well with pages that are uncluttered and sections clearly defined. And the photographs ? The photographs are excellent. In addition to the illustrations for the text, the author has chosen seventy-four full page reproductions. It should be noted that at the time of her death, Ulmann had approximately 2000 glass plate negatives exposed but not yet developed. Several of these are reproduced in this book for the first time. I would agree with the University of New Mexico Press's assessment that Featherstone is successful in establishing a critical context in which to view Doris Ulmann's accomplishments , that is, "a photographer on the cusp of two distinct trends in photography—the romantic pictorialism of the teens and twenties , and the documentary of the thirties." However, in light of the number of textual errors given the essay's length, I must call to question the author's thoroughness. For example , according to the author, Doris Ulmann spent nearly the entire summer of 1933 shooting at the "Joseph G. Campbell" Folk School near Brasstown, North Carolina. A simple check of sources will reveal the actual...