The Mine Dumps, Victor, CO by Laura Gilpin, Graveluxe Photo Print
Artist Biography
Laura Gilpin born on April 22, 1891, was the first child of Frank and Emma Gilpin. At the time, her father was a rancher on Horse Creek, south of Colorado Springs, and had to take Emma to a friend’s home in Austin Bluffs so she would be near a doctor when delivering Laura.
For her 12th birthday, Laura was given a Kodak Brownie Camera. This began her interest in photography which lasted her lifetime. Her mother sent 12-year-old Laura to visit Laura Perry, Emma’s closest friend and her daughter’s namesake, who lived in St. Louis. Perry was totally blind, and the two visited the St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition, every day for a month, tasking Gilpin to describe in detail every exhibit at the fair. Gilpin later said “The experience taught me the kind of observation I would have never learned otherwise.”
Gilpin was educated in several eastern schools at the insistence of her mother. While in the East, Laura met Gertrude Kasebier, a famous photographer who later became Laura’s mentor and lifelong friend.
When Laura returned to Colorado Springs from her trips to the east, she often visited General Palmer, founder of the city. He would take her horseback riding, and on walking excursions around his home, teaching Gilpin about the plants, animals, and wildlife that they encountered.
In 1918 , while in New York, she became seriously ill during the influenza epidemic. Back in Colorado Springs she was nursed back to health by “Betsy” Forster who became her dear friend and companion for over fifty years.
Her continued study of photography took her to the Clarence White School in New York City where she developed her interest in expanding from art photography to commercial photography. It was here that she learned about platinum printing, which she would continue to work with the rest of her career.
Back in Colorado Springs, Gilpin joined artists associated with the Broadmoor Art Academy. She made her living during this period by printing platinum portraits of local people who preferred the lower cost of photographs to having painted portraits.
Her interest in making photographic books took her to the published study entitled “The Enduring Navaho” which won the Western Heritage Award in 1969, one of numerous awards given her in her later years. Gilpin died on November 30, 1979. In 2012, Laura Gilpin was inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame.
