Frederick Gutekunst est un photographe Américain, né le 25 septembre 1831 et décédé le 24 avril 1917. On lui doit de nombreux portraits, ainsi que des vues stéréoscopiques.
Frederick Gutekunst was a daguerreian from 1857-1860 in Philadelphia, Pa. From 1854 to 1860 the firm was listed at 706 Arch Street (In 1857 at 164 Arch Street). Before entering into photography as a full time business, he succeeded in making copper electrotype plates from daguerreotypes. He obtained his first daguerreotype camera by trading an electrical battery to Dr. Isaac Norris for it, and then he got a better lens for the camera from a photographer known as the "Buckeye Blacksmith". Born in 1831 in Germantown, Pa., Frederick experimented early with the daguerreian process, and opened a gallery with his brother Lewis Gutekunst in 1856. Frederick Gutekunst is listed in "Photography in America" on several pages.
Frederick Gutekunst, the son of a German émigré cabinetmaker, was born in the Germantown section of Philadelphia in 1831. From age twelve to eighteen, at his father’s urging, he apprenticed in the law office of Joseph Simon Cohen, prothonotary to th e Supreme Court. Law proved so “dry and uninteresting” to Frederick that – as he rec ounted later in life – he would spend the majority of his dinner allowance on mate rials to carry out experiments in physics and chemistry. It was around this time that he de veloped an interest in photography, a new and burgeoning art form that would eventually make him famous. (As if some how a portent of his natural talent, the name “Gutekunst” tran slates from the German as “good art.”) In his early teens Frederick was a frequent (volunteer) sitter at the daguerreotype gallery of Marcus Aurelius Root, who was among the earl iest photographers in America; however, Frederick learned the craft of daguerreotyping from Robert Cornelius, founder, in 1840, of Philadelphia’s first photographic studio. Although not its originator, Frederick succeeded in the chemical process that converted the unique dagu erreotype image into a printable electrotype (intaglio) plate; the results were promis ing, but not good enough to pursue commercially. Frederick’s talent for chemistr y did not go unnoticed by his father, who apprenticed him, from age eighteen, to the druggist Frederick Klett, which soon set him on a path to Philadelphia College of Pharmacy (henceforth PCP). It is perhaps no coincidence that Cornelius studied chemistry with Gerard Troost, PCP’s first chemistry professor.
In 1853, after a four-year apprenticeship with Kle tt, the last two of which included simultaneous matriculation at PCP, Frederick graduated with a thesis titled History of electro-metallurgy and its application to pharmacy . As Frederick progressed towards a pharmacy career, he also began experimenting with his first camera, which consiste d of a five-dollar lens he added to a box built by his father. In October of that same year, at age 22, he entered his firs t photography contest at the 23rd Exhibition of American Manufacturers at the Franklin In stitute for the Promotion of Mechanical Arts.
For the next two years Frederick worked in th e Market Street drug st ore of Avery Tobey, a fellow PCP alumnus. Meanwhile, Frederick’s in terest in photography grew even stronger through the encouragement of his younger brother Louis, a barber , with whose financial support Frederick opened, in 1856, the “Gutekunst & Brot her” photography studio at 706 Arch Street. Their partnership lasted until 1860, when Louis resumed his former work.
The outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 and Philade lphia’s importance as an economic, industrial, and military center turned Gutekunst’s studio into a major photography destination, particularly for portraiture. In 1866 the business moved severa l doors down to 712 Arch Street, and Frederick spared no expense turning the larger space into a “temple of beauty and grandeur.” As one newspaper columnist wrote in a 1913 profile about him: “There was hardly a busier man in Philadelphia than Mr. Gutekunst. As the troops tramped through the city, thousands of men flocked to his Arch Street studi o to procure a likeness to send ba ck to loved ones left behind, and many times those curious little prints were, and still are, the only pictures of tangible kind of this or that boy who marched away from home in Fe deral blue. The generals came, Grant and Meade and Sheridan while, as his reputation spread, th e most prominent figures in other walks of life more and more frequented the photographer’s studio.” Gutekunst was a favorite photographer of the elite of the period, and his sitters included Walt Whitman, Ulysses S. Grant, Lucretia Mott, Thom as Eakins, A. J. Drexel, John D. Lankenau, and Woodrow Wilson. The nine national and interna tional exhibitions the st udio participated in between 1865 and 1876 garnered it gifts, medals, and awards, all of which helped secure for Gutekunst a name beyond the United States.
One of the studio’s most celebrated images is an impressive technical feat: a te n-foot long panoramic view of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, which at its unveiling in 1876 was de scribed as the largest photograph in the world. (One of several rare surviving original imprints of this subject is on vi ew in this gallery.) Throughout his more than 60-year career Gutekunst maintained cl ose ties with PCP. He was an active member of the Alumni A ssociation, a significant donor, and his photographs appeared regularly in PCP publications. Assembled in se veral albums still owned by USP (two of which are on display in this gallery) are dozens of photos of PCP graduates, office rs, and trustees that bear the Gutekunst studio stamp. At Gutekunst’s death in 1917 the American Journal of Pharmacy published a three-page obitu ary, and the PCP Board of Tr ustees issued the following resolution to memorialize him:
