Otto Ping: Photographer of Brown County, Indiana, 1900–1940 by W. Douglas Hartley, editors; Published: 1994; Softcover; 10x8.5; 95 pp; ISBN: 0871951053; Item # IHS034.

Otto Ping began taking pictures of the people and places of his native Brown County, Indiana, in 1900. Primarily a portraitist, Ping photographed individuals, couples, family groups, and larger gatherings. His portraits are characterized by hastily thrown up backdrops, stark lighting, and rigid poses. They have a documentary quality, and one senses in the faces that peer from these images the determination with which these people met lives of toil and hardship. Otto Ping: Photographer of Brown County, Indiana, 1900–1940 offers a sampling of Ping's work with commentary by W. Douglas Hartley and essays by historians of photography Anne E. Peterson and Stephen J. Fletcher.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• Otto Ping 1883–1975
• The Photographs of Otto Ping
• “Otto Ping and Itinerant Photography” by Anne E. Peterson
• “Signigicant beyond Intent” by Stephen J. Filetcher
• Bibliography

About the Author

W. Douglas Hartley received B.A. and M.A. degrees from Indiana University, an M.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute, and a Ph.D. from New York University. He is now retired after spending thirty-five years as a professor of art at Illinois State University.