Florestine perrault collins photos
- Florestine perrault collins work
- Florestine Perrault Collins (January 20, 1895 – April 4, 1988) was an American professional photographer from New Orleans.
- Florestine Perrault Collins was born in 1895 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
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Florestine Perrault Collins
Photography was considered, by some, to be a good vocation for women of colour, because it could challenge white stereotypes and use femininity as a tool against racism. These ideals are reflected in Florestine’s photography. Much of her early work features portraits of young women with props such as flowers and kittens, in poses that mirrored conventional conservative middle-class values of black femininity. In this way, Florestine’s portraits challenged contemporary mainstream portrayals of Black women, showing them as individuals instead of presenting them as subservient or hypersexualised.
Despite her successful career, which lasted nearly 30 years and supported herself and her family through the Great Depression, Florestine was limited by her gender and race. Opportunities for white female photographers were growing during the early 20th century, but Florestine’s opportunities and clientele were limited by her race and her studio’s location in the Black business district.
Her first husband was also very conservative and believed that woman sho
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Florestine Perrault Collins
African-American photographer based in New Orleans
Florestine Perrault Collins | |
|---|---|
Self-portrait, early 1920s | |
| Born | Florestine Marguerite Perrault January 20, 1895 New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Died | April 4, 1988 Los Angeles, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Photography |
| Spouse(s) | Eilert Bertrand, Herbert W. Collins |
Florestine Perrault Collins (January 20, 1895 – April 4, 1988) was an American professional photographer from New Orleans. Collins is noted for having created photographs of African-American clients that "reflected pride, sophistication, and dignity" instead of racial stereotypes.[1]
Life and career
Born in Louisiana, Florestine Marguerite Perrault was one of six children in a strict Catholic family.[2] She attended public school only until age six, when she was forced to drop out to help bring in family income.
In 1909, Collins began practicing photography at age 14.[3] Her subjects ranged from weddings, First Communions, and graduations to personal pho
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Picturing Black New Orleans: A Creole Photographer’s View of the Early Twentieth Century
University Press of Florida
2012-09-02
152 pages
7×10
Cloth ISBN 13: 978-0-8130-4187-2
Arthé A. Anthony, Professor of American Studies, Emeritus
Occidental College, Los Angeles, California
Florestine Perrault Collins (1895-1988) lived a fascinating and singular life. She came from a Creole family that had known privileges before the Civil War, privileges that largely disappeared in the Jim Crow South. She learned photographic techniques while passing for white. She opened her first studio in her home, and later moved her business to New Orleans’s black business district. Fiercely independent, she ignored convention by moving out of her parents’ house before marriage and, later, by divorcing her first husband.
Between 1920 and 1949, Collins documented African American life, capturing images of graduations, communions, and recitals, and allowing her subjects to help craft their images. She supported herself and her family throughout the Great Depression and in the pr
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