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Katharine Legat (née Edis)

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Katharine Legat (née Edis)

by Olive Edis
whole-plate autochrome, mid 1910s
Given by Rooks Rider Solicitors, 1987
Photographs Collection
NPG x45517

Sitterback to top

  • Katharine Legat (née Edis) (1880-1963), Photographer; sister of Olive Edis. Sitter in 14 portraits, Artist associated with 22 portraits.

Artistback to top

Linked publicationsback to top

  • 100 Photographs, 2018, p. 49 Read entry

    Olive Edis (1876-1955) was a pioneer of Autochrome, the first commercially available full-colour photographic process, which was introduced in 1907. (She even designed her own Autochrome viewer.) Edis took portraits of eminent personalities, but achieved her most impressive results when photographing her two sisters with artful arrangements of fabrics and flowers. In this profile of Edis’s sister Katharine (1880-1963),the curl of hair and headpiece are perfectly focused, rather than the face as one would expect, with the photographer skilfully exploiting the vivid but muted colours that Autochrome produced. Edis joined the Royal Photographic Society in 1913 and was made a Fellow the following year

Subjects & Themesback to top

Events of 1913back to top

Current affairs

The Suffragette, Emily Davison dies after stepping out in front of the King's horse as a protest at the Epsom Derby. In the same year the Liberal government passed the Cat and Mouse Act allowing them to release and re-arrest Suffragettes who went on hunger strike while in prison. Davidson, herself, had been on hunger strike and was force-fed while detained at Holloway Prison.

Art and science

Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring comes to London following its premier at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Audiences were shocked by Stravinsky's rhythmic and dissonant musical score and by the violent jerky dancing of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, which were intended to represent pagan ritual.

International

Henry Ford introduces the assembly line at the Ford Motor Company, rapidly increasing the rate at which the famous Model T could be manufactured, leading to massive growth in the motorcar industry and demonstrating to other industries the efficiency of mass production.

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