The colony of artists that gathered in Cullercoats in North East England in the late 19th century had one particularly celebrated member.
He was the American painter Winslow Homer (1836-1910) who arrived in the fishing village in the spring of 1881 and was based there for about 18 months.
This period is now widely recognised as having further influenced his development into one of America’s finest realist artists.
In Cullercoats, Homer’s path crossed that of Jane Carrick, daughter of the miniature portraitist Thomas Heathfield Carrick (1802-1874) who featured in last week’s Pressphotoman blog.
The 1881 Census records Jane, by now in her early 50s, staying as a ‘visitor’ at an address in the Newcastle suburb of Jesmond.
Having wound up ‘The Misses Carrick’ photography business that she ran in Newcastle with her younger sister Minnie, Jane’s ‘rank, profession or occupation’ was recorded as ‘painter/artist.’
However, a number of scholars and researchers have identified her Cullercoats home at 12 Bank Top overlooking the rugged coast and harbour as the likely location of an artist’s studio used by Winslow Homer.
A decade later, public records confirm that 12 Bank Top was where Jane was still working as an artist alongside many neighbours who earned their living from the sea.
In the years since, books have been written about the Cullercoats artists’ colony and Winslow Homer’s developing art.
Of particular interest to photohistorians was an exhibition staged in Maine and Pennsylvania in 2018/19 titled Winslow Homer and the Camera: Photography and the Art of Painting.
In a book published to accompany the exhibition, authors Dana E. Boyd and Frank H. Goodyear III reproduced a photograph as its frontispiece featuring a camera owned by the painter.
Closer inspection of the label reveals that the camera was supplied by Mawson and Swan, a well-established photographic dealer at ‘9 & 13 Mosley Street, Newcastle on Tyne.’
The authors also pinpointed “August 15, 1882,” inscribed with his initials on the camera’s wooden plate holder, as a possible date for its purchase.
It is not known whether Jane Carrick as an accomplished photographer played any part in advising Homer about this purchase.
However, it is worth noting that Mawson & Swan’s premises in Mosley Street, Newcastle were adjacent to ‘The Misses Carrick’ former business in Grey Street.
Jane would have known of Mawson & Swan’s pedigree as a supplier of high-quality cameras and photographic materials and had little hesitation in recommending their shop to her American visitor.
Following Winslow Homer’s return to America in late 1882, ‘The Misses Carrick’ changed direction again.
Still in Cullercoats, they launched a new business aimed at well-to-do families offering music, drawing and painting tuition to “a limited number of Young Ladies for Board and Education.”
Whether this business flourished or not is not known, however, as we’ve seen, the 1891 Census recorded Jane still living in Cullercoats where her occupation was stated as ‘artist.’
Of ‘The Misses Carrick,’ Jane died in Middlesex in 1896 at the age of 66 whilst no records have been found that reveal details about the final years of Minnie’s life.
Pressphotoman would be interested in hearing, in particular, about any examples of photography or artworks by ‘The Misses Carrick.’
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