Bertha Evelyn Jaques
Bertha Evelyn Jaques, Cherry, South Haven. 1909, cyanotype negative on brown paper mount. Gift of the Estate of Lester and Betty Guttman, Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, 2014.431.
A founder of the Chicago Society of Etchers and active member of the Wild Flower Preservation Society, Bertha Evelyn Jaques also created thousands of cyanotypes of plant specimens. An accessible practice deemed especially appropriate for women around the turn of the century, the cyanotype process involves placing objects directly against sensitized paper and exposing them to light. This print features a cherry branch collected in South Haven, Michigan. In addition to its scientific value, it also evinces Jaques’s aesthetic sensibility. The cherry blossoms, rendered in various degrees of transparency, seem to radiate outwards and upwards, while the scattered petals to the right suggest the passing of time. Jaques regarded her work as a way of preserving the ephemeral beauty of the natural world. Describing her practice in a poem, she wrote: “There is a moment’s loveliness too great for words to hold; so paper caught and scattered it for all the world to keep.”
— Meichen Liu