Alice Hughes

Alice Hughes (1857-1939) was a renowned studio portraitist based in London during the later years of the nineteenth century. She worked primarily in her Gower Street studio, which employed over fifty assistants and process workers at one time – all women. At this studio, she photographed her first royal sitter in 1893, the Duchess of Fife with baby Princess Maud. Alice worked in platinotype and started the fashion of being photographed in large hats and evening dress in the style of Reynolds and Gainsborough. She specialised in the graceful posing of mother and child groups. A pioneer of portrait photography, Alice had developed a distinctive style “by fusing the conventions of society portraiture with the cool, monochromatic tones of the platinum print.”

The eldest daughter of society portrait painter Edward Hughes, Alice spoke of the support and artistic direction she received from her father, who was “a painter of beautiful women and children”. Both their styles are comparable – depicting high society women clad in “creamy white… soft flowing draperies”. In an interview first published in The Harmsworth Magazine in 1899, Alice stated that she favours “a simple tea gown, open at the neck”, as it “will often produce a very much better result than an elaborate stiff dinner-dress”. Alice famously avoided photographing men, stating:

Alice would only photograph boys until they donned what she denominated the “toga virilis”. In an 1895 interview, Alice demonstrated to Margaret Bateson the experience she offered to her sitters. A footman escorted the client into a double drawing room, “persian carpeted, furnished with restful many-cushioned sofas, decorated as to walls with some fine pictures”. The packing room echoed this visual busyness, “where every inch of wall space is occupied with stacks of photographs, pigeon-holed and alphabetically docketed”. Alice was meticulous in her photographic approach, focusing much of her energy on the dream-like painted backdrops and the strategic placement of floral props. She employed specific techniques to ensure her clients felt at ease, such as allowing her poodle to roam the studio, which she believed helped capture a child’s natural, relaxed expression.

At the height of her career, Alice estimated that she photographed approximately 2,000 clients annually. She managed a workforce of up to sixty women, who were responsible for various aspects of the production process, such producing the finished products, booking sittings, retouching negatives, ‘spotting’ prints (making good on any flaws in the printing process) and dispatching the final photographs. Alice championed her professionalism, stating “the motto of every work, whatever be her degree, must be ‘Thoroughness’”.

Alice passed away in the summer of 1939, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. Her photographic legacy suffered greatly, as the bombing that destroyed much of the infrastructure of the United Kingdom, also shattered the thousands of glass plate negatives stored in her archives. Despite this loss, the Royal Collection retains a significant collection of her work, and several prints are preserved in the National Portrait Gallery collection. Her impact on the field of photography has been enduring, as she helped establish it as a viable profession for women. Following her example, many women, such as Lena Connell, known for photographing numerous suffragettes, alongside Lallie Charles and her sister Rita Martin, entered the portrait studio.