F re d e r i c k
Whitman Glasier:
CIRCUS
PHOTOGRAPHS
Opposite:
Mademoiselle Scheel
with Lions, ca. 1905.
The Frederick Whitman Glasier:
Circus Photographs
exhibition is loaned by the
John and Mable
Ringling Museum of Art,
the State Art Museum of Florida,
under the administration of
Florida State University.
This traveling exhibition was
co-curated by Peter Kayafas
and Deborah W. Walk
in 2008 from the holdings
of The Ringling.
The companion volume,
Circus: The Photographs of
Frederick W. Glasier won the
AAM 2009 Frances SmythRavenel Prize for Excellence in
Publication Design.
1 04
OnV
i e w
Ma
g a z i n e
.
starting his career in photography, Glasier worked as a town
clerk and textile designer in his
hometown. By 1890, Glasier
moved to Brockton, MA, and
later opened the Glasier Art
Studio and Museum. From
his residence, Glasier worked,
exhibited his photographs, and
sold copies of his prints. By
1900, Glasier took publicity
photographs for major circuses and Wild West shows. He
had traveled out West and was
greatly influenced by William
F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Performers had their photographs
taken by Glasier, which they
later sold to their fans. While
Glasier took scenic shots of
the circus and portraits of circus performers for commercial sale, he also documented
the daily life of the traveling
circus and Wild West show.
Glasier also gave public lectures on his photographs to
increase his income. The talks
that Glasier gave were lantern
slide lectures that used his
photographs—hand tinted by
his wife. These lectures were
designed around his photoc om
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graphs of Native Americans,
the circus, and the history of
the Pilgrims.
Glasier used three 8 x10”
King view cameras to which he
added a Thornton-Pickard focal
plane shutter with a speed up to
1/3,000th of a second (just a little longer than today’s camera
flash speed and quicker than
it takes to blink your eyes!).
Glasier also used a Coerz Celor
lens on a 5x7” Graflex with an
accordion-line pleated focusing hood, as well as a postcard
Kodak camera. With all this
equipment, Glasier is said to be
a master of the “action shot,”
capturing an image of an object
or person in motion.
After over fifty years as a
professional photographer,
Glasier retired and spent his
time wood carving, or “whittling” as he called it. He died
on July 28, 1950, in Brockton,
and was buried in his hometown of Adams, MA. According to Kayafas, Glasier should
be regarded not only as a gifted
circus photographer, but also
among the greats of American
photography. O n V iew
2015