The Pine Sprite

Anne W. Brigman, a long-time resident of Oakland, California, was a leading figure in the Pictorialist movement of the early 20th century. Her images exemplify several key traits: they are moody, poetic and symbolic, suggesting a pantheistic union of human figures and the larger forces of nature. As one critic of the time noted, in Brigman's photographs "all sense of separation between the human being and nature is gone, and both seem part of all that is beautiful in elemental conditions."