Ruth Matilda Anderson (September 8, 1893 – May 20, 1983) was an American photographer and author, known for her ethnographic photographs and studies of mainly rural life in early 20th-century Spain. During her extended field trips to regions of Spain from the 1920s to the late 1940s, commissioned by the Hispanic Society of America (HSA), she took thousands of photographs and accompanying notes on Spanish life and people. This led to her appointment as Curator of Photography at the Hispanic Society in 1922. From 1954 until her retirement, she continued her career as Curator of Costumes at the HSA, authoring books on Spanish historical and folk costumes.
Anderson’s best photographs have been characterized as striking a "balance of objectivity and compassion [...], even when documenting subjects of an anthropological nature." In the 21st century, her contributions to the social history and art historical knowledge of Spain have led to a renewed interest in local history, further publications and public exhibitions in several Spanish cities.
Biography Anderson was born on September 8, 1893, in Phelps County, Nebraska, U.S., as one of three daughters of Alfred Theodore Anderson of Norwegian origin and his wife Alma Matilda Anderson, née Wickstrom. She began her career in photography under the supervision of her father, who operated a studio in Kearney, Nebraska, with his wife as a partner, specializing in landscape and portrait photography. A member of the National Photographic Association of the United States, he was skilled in making small furniture and constructed his own photographic equipment. After studying fine arts for a year at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Anderson changed to Nebraska State Teachers College at Kearney and graduated in 1915 with a certificate to teach mathematics and history. Not interested in teaching, she resumed her former studies at the University of Nebraska, and graduated in 1919.For more detailed information, see Sider, Sandra. Ruth Matilda Anderson: Biographical Sketch. In Anderson, Ruth Matilda, José Luis Cabo and Sandra Sider (1998). Ruth Matilda Anderson: Fotografías De Galicia 1924–1926. New York, Santiago de Compostela: Hispanic Society of America, Centro Galego de Artes da Imaxe, pp. 29–34. .
After moving to New York City, she enrolled at the Clarence H. White School of Photography, the first American institution that taught photography as an art form, with an innovative focus on documentary images. The White School of Photography was inspired by the artistic movement of the Photo-Secession, introduced by Alfred Stieglitz. Trained in such avant-garde methods, Anderson learned how to create images corresponding to the standards of the school, learned how to use complex cameras, special effects with darkroom techniques and developed an eye for effective visual stories.
Curator of photographs In 1921, working as an interior designer in New York City, Anderson was hired by the Hispanic Society of America (HSA) at the recommendation of Clarence White himself. Under the supervision of the society's founder and director, Archer Milton Huntington, she improved her skills as a photographer and researcher and was appointed Curator of Photography for the Society's Museum and Library in 1922. There, she started as one of a group of young women in their twenties, who had been hired without specific training for their eventual specialization: Similar to Elizabeth du Gué Trapier, Beatrice Gilman Proske, Alice Wilson Frothingham, Florence Lewis May, and Eleanor Sherman Font, Anderson acquired considerable expertise in the history of Spanish art and civilization through her lifelong activities for the HSA.Huntington "recently had hired a group of young women in their twenties to work in the Library Department, all freshly graduated with degrees in library science [...]. After only a few months as librarians, Huntington assembled them one day and told them of his plans to form a Museum Department composed of specialist curators for each major area within the collections. He proceeded to offer them the opportunity to select a new field of specialization, which they eagerly accepted: Elizabeth du Gué Trapier, Paintings and Drawings; Beatrice Gilman Proske, Sculpture; Alice Wilson Frothingham, Ceramics; Florence Lewis May, Textiles; and Eleanor Sherman Font, Prints (photos)."On page x of the foreword to her book Hispanic Costume: 1480–1530, she acknowledged the assistance during her research by other curators at the HSA.
Between 1923 and 1930, Anderson made five long trips to Spain, taking documentary photographs and collecting related information for the HSA, mainly in Galicia, Asturias, León, Extremadura and Andalusia. Before setting out, she had started to study Spanish and she continued her studies on a daily basis. Focusing on rural villages and small towns, her images cover many aspects of social life and traditional crafts of the region.
On her first trip to Galicia in 1924/25, she was accompanied by her father, who wrote a diary taking ethnographic notes for the documentation of her photographs. Aiming to reach even remote villages, they sometimes had to travel on horseback, ferry boats or even on foot. In the inns where they were staying, they improvized a darkroom to develop their films. On later travels, she used an automobile and driver for easier transport of her photographic cameras, tripod, boxes of films and chemicals, as well as her personal luggage.Anderson's father wrote in his diary: "We are still experiencing many troubles with our ICA camera and lose many films." Rodriguez Álvarez et al. 2022, p. 17 and p. 49 for a picture of her Icarette camera.
In total, Anderson took more than 14,000 mostly black-and-white photographs of Spanish people and places, showing men and women at work and doing domestic chores, children at work or playing, and traditional customs."Made during six expeditions to Spain, mostly during the 1920s, Anderson's photographs for The Hispanic Society of America comprise a remarkable achievement: more than 14,000 images accompanied by her notes and commentaries." Lenaghan et al, 2004, p. 14. Documenting rural Spanish lifestyles before further industrialization and urbanization and the Spanish Civil War, her images focused on the cycle of life (birth, adult life, rites of passage, festivities and death) and on information gathered from those people Anderson had met.
Curator of costumes After her extended work as Curator of Photography, she re-focused her career on studying traditional Spanish costumes and wrote books and articles on the subject. Her last and sixth official mission to Spain took place between December 1948 and May 1949, where she collected information and took photographs for her book Spanish Costume: Extremadura (1951). On this occasion, she also went to Madrid to study historical costumes at the Museo del Pueblo Español (Museum of the Spanish People), the forerunner of today's Museo del Traje (Museum of Garment). In 1954, she was appointed to the position of Curator of Costumes at the Hispanic Society, where she remained until she retired. Her large number of photographs and field notes have been used as sources for scholarly publications by herself and other researchers.See her own publications below and those of others in the list of literature.
In Spanish Costume: Extremadura, she published her explanations and photographs on the traditional dress and costumes of the Extremadura region. In the preface, she acknowledged "the kindness of townsmen and villagers, of countrymen and shepherds, and of the women, who instantly broke off whatever they were doing to help a stranger."Ruth Matilda Anderson, Spanish Costume: Extremadura. 1951, p. vii.
Her book Costumes painted by Sorolla in his Provinces of Spain presented studies on different ethnic costumes that Spanish painter Joaquin Sorolla had used in his cycle of paintings Vision of Spain. In great detail, she commented on the ethnographic background, referring to local dress and lifestyles, regional Spanish history and literature of Sorolla's paintings. Her book included black-and-white illustrations, showing details of the canvases, as well as accompanying sketches by Sorolla in oil or watercolor from the collection of the HSA, paintings from private collections and oil studies in the Sorolla Museum in Madrid. In a 1958 review, it was called "a useful background for those unacquainted with the intricacies of the Spanish provinces."
Her last book, Hispanic costume, 1480–1530, covers the period of the last decades before the Conquest of Granada and Christopher Columbus' first voyage to the Americas, both in 1492, until after the coronation of Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor. Tracing the historical development of this period of great changes in Spain, the book provides information on secular ceremonial dress for mainly aristocratic men and women, including outer garments and furs, hairstyles, headgear, body garments, leg coverings, underwear, footgear and accessories. For illustrations, Anderson included mainly paintings of the nobility, Portuguese as well as Spanish. Commenting on her research for illustrations of body garments, she wrote: "But as noble gentlemen generally do not reveal their inner garments, illustrations of shirts, doublets, and other details have been taken from figures stripped for action such as executioners, flagellators, soldiers, and farmers." With this book, Anderson provided useful information about historical dress for political, art and literary historians. Also, she wanted "to enable theater designers to proceed in something of the assured freedom with which Renaissance tailors, furriers and shoemakers cut and sewed to please the taste of their clients. In his 1981 review, Joseph R. Jones of the University of Kentucky called Anderson's work an "occasional book by an old-fashioned connoisseur-scholar, whose character is as interesting as the subject matter."
Death Anderson died in New York City on May 20, 1983, at the age of 89 and was buried in her family's home town Kearney, Nebraska.
Legacy Collections The Ruth Anderson Collection, which has served as a source for publications on Spanish historical customs, folklore and dress, forms an important part of the archives of the Hispanic Society's Museum and Library. Further, Anderson's portrait of Clarence Hudson White (1919) is held in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
Exhibitions and other media
Starting in August 2019, the exhibition “A look from yesteryear. Photographs by Ruth Matilda Anderson in Galicia" was shown in A Coruña and in over 35 municipalities of Galicia. In a Spanish study on Anderson's representation of the past and on contemporary popular culture in digital media, her work was referred to as an "exceptional collection of images taken in the 1920s in different parts of Galicia, portraying our people, customs and traditions, an ethnographic legacy of incalculable value."Translated from the Spanish original: «la excepcional colección de imágenes sacadas en los años 20 por diferentes parajes de Galicia, retratando a nuestras gentes, costumbres y tradiciones, un legado etnográfico de valor incalculable» Pena Castro (2020), p. 87 Further, it was one of the most successful exhibitions organized in the city hall to the point that the initial number of scheduled guided tours had to be multiplied by four.