Betty Kuhner: The American Family Portrait

By Kate Kuhner and Steven Stolman

A monograph of the groundbreaking photography of Betty Kuhner (1916–2014), who was the first to take midcentury family portraits of the affluent social set out of the studio and into the environment.

Groundbreaking photographer Betty Kuhner truly revolutionized the American family portrait, taking it from the staid arrangement of mother, father and children dressed in their Sunday best, carefully arranged in front of the living room mantelpiece or on a sofa. Rather, she instructed her subjects to dress casually, many times similarly, and coaxed them to accompany her into the backyard, the garden or onto the beach. Once there, she would intuitively find the perfect location and, more importantly, exquisite light, all the while engaging Mother Nature and serendipity to serve as the ultimate stylist. Her long and prolific career built an archive of over five decades of extraordinary documentation of America’s most distinguished dynasties—with assorted Kennedys, Fords, and the families of style icons Lilly Pulitzer and Esteé Lauder included in her inspiring body of work.

By choosing to work exclusively in black and white, Kuhner unknowingly created a powerful genre that would not only impact family photography, but also all fine contemporary wedding, portrait, fashion and advertising imagery as we now know it. Today, the black and white “environmental portrait” is considered the preeminent, highly regarded standard, thanks to one remarkable visionary—Betty Kuhner. This book has been been featured in national publications including PEOPLE Magazine, Garden & Gun Magazine, and Modern Luxury.

Kate Kuhner, daughter of Betty Kuhner, is the owner of Kate Kuhner Photography in Palm Beach and keeper of her mother’s archive.

Steven Stolman curated a retrospective on Betty Kuhner during her lifetime, is well versed on East Coast high society of the 1950s to the present, and is the author of Scalamandré: Haute Decor (Gibbs Smith, 2013).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gibbs Smith
• Release date: May 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781423651796

Kate Kuhner

Kate Kuhner, daughter of Betty Kuhner, is the owner of Kate Kuhner Photography in Palm Beach and keeper of her mother’s archive.

Book preview

Betty Kuhner

The American Family Portrait

Kate Kuhner & Steven Stolman

Betty Kuhner

The American Family Portrait

Digital Edition 1.0

Text © 2019 Steven Stolman and Kate Kuhner

Photographs © 2019 Kate Kuhner

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except brief portions quoted for purpose of review.

Gibbs Smith

P.O. Box 667

Layton, Utah 84041

Orders: 1.800.835.4993

www.gibbs-smith.com

ISBN: 9781423651796

To our beautiful moms in heaven,

Elizabeth Kuhner and Gloria Sloat Stolman

Betty Kuhner

Table of Contents

foreword preface portraits by a lady the portraits armour family bancroft family bardes family benjamin family bishop family bissell family boardman family butler family coleman family coulter family crichton family cushing family donnell family donnelley family doubleday family dryer family duchin family dudley family duke family dupont family earl family farinas family farish family field family firestone family ford family geary family gould family gubelmann family hannah family harris family hoover family hufty family hulitar family hutton family javits family kennedy family kinney family landa family lauder family lawford family lufkin family matthews family maxey family mcconnell family merck family monell family morrisey family norris family nye family obolensky family oxenberg family palmer family phipps family pitt family pray family preston family pulitzer family reid family rhinelander family robinson family rosenthal family saud family sherrill family shriver family slocum family earl smith family page smith family stephen smith family van rensselaer family von auersperg family wakeman family wallace family windsor family young family

foreword

Liza Pulitzer Calhoun

Being photographed by Betty Kuhner was always a family event. She was a big part of our family, as Mom considered Betty and her husband, Russell, to be two of her best friends. Her style was unique, and every photo we ever had taken became a family treasure. You could walk into any house, anywhere in the world, see a photo of an individual or a family, and instantly recognize Betty’s work. She was truly an artist with an amazing eye, and her belief in black-and-white imagery remained strong throughout her life. With her trusty Hasselblad strapped around her neck, and her enormous glasses perched on the end of her nose, off we would go, around our garden, looking for the perfect shot that she had in mind. And as she was looking down into the lens of that black box, she never stopped laughing and talking. She was part of our family, and if Mom had her way, she would have been in the photo with us.

Liza Pulitzer, Palm Beach, Florida, 1980.

preface

Kate Kuhner

I have always looked up to my mother. She was not your traditional mom of the 1950s and ’60s; she was the unique working mother. I must admit that I would have preferred her to be waiting at home for me after school with a tray of freshly baked brownies, just like TV’s June Cleaver. But now, with the advantage of maturity, I can appreciate the invaluable lessons I learned from her, not necessarily from her role as a homemaker, but rather from her role in the working world.

From the beginning, my mother always had her own point of view. Standing on the sidelines while my photographer father was working, she would often say, Russ, why don’t you try it from this angle? or How about doing it this way? Finally, in annoyance, my father said, Betty, get your own camera! And so she did.

Her first client was the Jessup family in Greenwich, Connecticut. Mom felt that if she fell flat on her face, Greenwich was far enough away from Westport, where we lived, that she would not tarnish my father’s reputation as an accomplished professional photographer. Armed with her own Hasselblad and her warm personality, she ran out the door, looking over her shoulder and asking, Now, which button do I push again? The rest is history.

Mom’s unique point of view took the families out of their formal living rooms and, instead, had them interacting with each other out on their lawns, hanging from trees, running on the beach or frolicking in the ocean. A new standard was born.

Her own uniform consisted of white slacks, a blue cotton shirt and her hair held back by a crisp cotton scarf. The final accent was her famous oversized glasses. It was informal but distinctively stylish. In giving me tips when