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Uma fotógrafa
americana em Espanha...

«The photographs that the Hispanic Society of America directly sponsored point most clearly to the institution’s goals and preferred style. Of these perhaps none are more striking than those of Ruth Anderson (1893-1983). Born in Nebraska, she was introduced to photography by her father, Alfred Theodore Anderson, who ran a studio in Kearney. After training as a teacher, she traveled to New York and studied at the Clarence White School for Photography from which she graduated in 1919. Two years later, she began work at The Hispanic Society of America. Beginning in 1923, Anderson would travel throughout Spain to take her pictures with the aim of forming a comprehensive collection. Perhaps because the Hispanic Society already held so many images of artistic and architectural monuments, Anderson gradually devoted less attention to these. Instead, she concentrated on scenes of daily life.

Although Anderson had been taught to emphasize the picture–making aspects of her art, she subscribed enthusiastically to the Hispanic Society’s program of documentary photography. In her image of a Galician milkmaid, Anderson photographed a barefoot little girl holding a milk pail. While the image records the austerity of the child’s life, Anderson also projects an appealing sympathy for the girl. The balance of objectivity and compassion characterizes Anderson’s finest work and it is striking that even when documenting subjects of an anthropological nature, she composes the scene with a keen artistry, doubtless fostered by her training.

After 1930, Anderson’s career shifted as she now focused on the study of Spanish costume and began a productive career publishing several books and articles on the subject. Although she subsequently made one more extended photographic expedition to Spain (1948–49), it marks the last time the Hispanic Society sponsored such a campaign.»

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