Collection is open for research.
Gift of Mrs. Matt F. Maury, April 1977 (Lib. Acc. 14087, Photo Acc. 1977D025).
This collection is arranged in two series:
Helen Plummer Gatch was born in 1861 in Alton, Illinois, to Orlando P. S. Plummer, who moved to Portland, Oregon, with his three daughters in 1864 after the death of their mother. As a young woman, she taught school before her marriage to Claud Gatch (born 1859), who worked in banking and served as mayor of Salem, Oregon, from 1893-1896. They had two children, Orytha "Ryth" (later Orytha Gatch Skidmore, 1886-1970) and Thomas Leigh "Tam" (1891-1954).
Helen Plummer Gatch was an ambitious amateur photographer who used her domestic life and her children as subjects for her pictorial photography. She may also have made some documentary photographs during the 1890s, such as an image of the Oregon State Insane Asylum (now the Oregon State Hospital) in Salem. Although she did not construct stage sets for her photographs as other pictorialists did, Gatch used composition, costuming, and titles to pictorialize her subjects and to produce Dutch genre images. One example is "Romeo and Juliet," made in 1891, showing Ryth and Asahel Bush, Jr., playing Shakespeare at the Bush home in Salem. This image was frequently reproduced and exhibited. Gatch used prominent Salem homes and friends as sets and models, and also photographed at the family summer house on the Oregon Coast near Newport.
Gatch made her mark at the local, regional, and national levels with winning contest entries and acceptance of her work into salons at San Francisco and Philadelphia. She joined the Salon Club (which opposed the Photo-Secession movement) and was involved in the organization of the Federation of American Photographic Societies in 1904. Her work was shown in the first American Photographic Salon (in which she also participated as an organizer) later that year in New York, and it came to Portland the following year as the first show at the new Portland Art Museum. Gatch served on the national preliminary juries for the second and third American Salons, and was also selected as a judge for an Oregon Camera Club exhibition at the Portland Art Museum in 1906.
The Gatch family moved to California in 1912. Helen Plummer Gatch died in Oakland on January 11, 1942.
Sources: "Myra Wiggins and Helen Gatch: Conflicts in American Pictorialism," by Roger Hull, History of Photography, Summer 1992, pages 152-169; "Oregon Camera Club Exhibit Open," Oregonian, November 28, 1906, page 18; vital records via Ancestry.com.
Helen Plummer Gatch photographs collection, Org. Lot 32, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
This collection was originally processed as the Mrs. Matt F. Maury collection. In approximately 1980, five images were removed from the collection and cataloged individually. In 2006, an online collection guide was written by Sharon Howe, and the collection was retitled. The guide also included cross-references to the five images that had been removed from the collection. In April 2025, the images were returned to the collection, and the guide was revised by Katie Mayer to reflect their reincorporation, to make clarifications and corrections, and conform to current standard.
Helen Plummer Gatch's photograph of the Oregon State Insane Asylum is part of the Povey family collection (Org. Lot 9) at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library, and her image of a Romeo and Juliet scene is part of the O. P. S. Plummer family collection (Org. Lot 14). These collections also include other images by or relating to Helen Plummer Gatch.
Small collection of photographs taken by and relating to Helen Plummer Gatch and her family. The images date from 1880 to around 1910. Gatch's photographs include cyanotype coast scenes in the vicinity of the family's summer cottage at Newport, as well as black-and-white prints depicting her children, Thomas Leigh and Orytha Gatch, and other family members, including Governor Stephen Fowler Chadwick and his wife, Jane Ann Smith Chadwick. Among these images is a photogravure of an award-winning Dutch genre print. In addition to photographs by Gatch, the collection includes portraits of her, of her husband, Claud Gatch, and of other unidentified family members that were taken by professional portrait photographers in Portland and Salem, Oregon.
The Oregon Historical Society owns the materials in the Research Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. The Society does not necessarily hold copyright to all materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from copyright owners.
The photographs include cyanotypes taken by Helen Plummer Gatch on the Oregon coast near the family's summer home at Newport and black-and-white mounted family snapshots and art photography prints. Also included is a photogravure of an award-winning Dutch genre scene, possibly from a Salon portfolio.
Images include views of Helen and Claud Gatch's cottage in Newport, dunes, surf, and the Jump Off Joe rock formation. People pictured include Thomas Leigh Gatch, a woman who may be Claud Gatch's mother, and unidentified women in bathing costumes.
"Oregon Woods," location unidentified (cyanotype), and an untitled pastoral of two young women on a streambank (black and white).
Mounted snapshots, probably by Helen Plummer Gatch. Family group includes the governor and his wife, Jane Ann Smith Chadwick, with other Gatch family members. There is also an individual photo of Jane Ann Smith Chadwick in a garden.
Individual studio portraits.