F. Holland Day
American, 1864 - 1933
Person TypePerson
BiographyA wealthy eccentric, Day took up photography in 1887 and began experimenting with the human form, regarding Classical Greece as the ideal. In 1896, he was elected to the Linked Ring, and in 1899, he embarked on his most well known project: a series of 250 negatives depicting the Stations of the Cross, with Day posing as Christ (after having grown his hair for one year, and fasted). Day did not join Alfred Stieglitz in the Photo-Secession group of 1902, suggesting there was a rivalry. He continued his work, photographing scenes from the legend of Orpheus, where one of the models was his protégé, Khalil Gibran. In 1914, his collection of photographs was destroyed in a devastating fire in his Boston home. Day led the rest of his life in a self-imposed exile.