H. Granville Barker in Character

Best known for his painstakingly planned and printed images of cathedral interiors, Frederick H. Evans was elected to the Linked Ring, a London Pictorialist group, in 1900. That year, Evans abandoned the meticulous, sharp style of his architectural views and instead took up portraiture employing a painterly, soft focus, which he had formerly used in landscapes. On July 1, 1900, Evans was present for the private London performance of Candida, a daring play written by his close friend George Bernard Shaw six years earlier. At this event he photographed the enterprising young actor Harley Granville Barker in character as the poet Eugene Marchbanks, who competes for the affections of the play’s title character, the wife of a clergyman. Unusual for Evans, this picture emphasizes the shape of the figure, and the background has been all but removed through close vertical cropping.