Nude, the Pool, c.1907

George H. Seeley’s monumental picture, Nude, the Pool, circa 1907, is a striking example of early 20th-century Pictorialist photography that takes the human form and the interplay of light and shadow as intertwined subject matter. The photograph showcases how such painterly effects can be distinctively created through the use of the camera and the sophisticated gum-bichromate over platinum printing process.

The image features a nude male figure in profile, situated next to a pool of water, creating an atmosphere of contemplation and intimacy. Seeley’s use of soft light and a controlled, careful composition emphasizes the sinuousness of the figure and gives the image an ethereal quality. The impressive size and sensitive rendering of subtle contrasts and tonal variations in the image highlight Seeley’s impressive technical skill.

George Seeley was a student of painting and drawing in Boston when he met F. Holland Day, who introduced him to the pictorial possibilities of photography. Seeley’s debut came in 1904, when he exhibited fourteen photographs in the First American Photographic Salon in New York, where Alfred Stieglitz saw them.

Impressed, Stieglitz invited Seeley to join the Photo Secession and was a member for six years where his work was exhibited in Stieglitz's gallery "291" and reproduced in Camera Work. The very image on offer, Nude, the Pool appeared in Camera Work in 1910.

This photograph was made during a period when the artistic use of photography was undergoing significant changes. At the time, photographers were moving away from traditional, academic depictions of the nude figure that were often posed in idealized forms. Instead, artists like Seeley embraced a more naturalistic approach, capturing the subject with a sense of realism and softness that evoked mood rather than strict anatomical study.

When looking at Seeley’s Nude, the Pool, it’s easy to see the connection with Degas’ paintings of bathers. The works share an intimacy of the body in a private moment. Both Seeley and Degas’ work moved beyond the traditional, idealized depictions of the nude, offering raw and natural representations of figures in unposed states.

Although Seeley’s career was shorter than others, he is an important figure in the Pictoralist movement. Works by Seeley don’t come to the market often, and his gum-bichromate prints in this size are even more rare. While smaller photogravures of this image are found in several important institutional collections, no other photographic prints of this image are known to exist.