Sutcliffe, Frank Meadow

British, 1853-1941

BiographyFrank Meadow Sutcliffe primarily photographed the people and landscape of Whitby, England. Outside of his work as a formal portrait photographer, he worked in an unposed, natural style that made for realistic yet atmospheric representations of his surroundings. He was an early proponent of Pictorialism—a movement which emerged in the late 19th century and encouraged artists to use photography in an almost Impressionistic, painterly way, rejecting society’s view of the camera as a tool solely for realistic documentation. In 1892, he helped found the Linked Ring Brotherhood, which functioned as a photographic society dedicated to defending the validity of photography as a legitimate expressive art form. Sutcliffe and his associates approached photography like traditional mediums of painting and sculpture, capturing their subject matters with attention to tonality, composition, beauty, and emotional intent.

As the son of successful watercolor painter Thomas Sutcliffe, Frank Meadow Sutcliffe spent much of his early childhood in his father’s studio. He originally had aspirations to be a painter, but he became interested in the technological advancements in photography and got his first camera in 1869. Following his father’s death in 1871, he opened a portrait studio to earn money to support his family. Alongside his career as a photographer, he was a prolific writer and authored a regular column in the Yorkshire Weekly Post. He became a curator of the Whitby Gallery and Museum in 1924 and held the position until his death. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society in 1941. Sutcliffe’s work is in the permanent collections of Getty Museum, Los Angeles; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; and various others.