Adelaide Hanscom
| Adelaide Hanscom Leeson | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Adelaide Marquand Hanscom November 25, 1875 Empire City (now Coos Bay, Oregon) |
| Died | November 19, 1931 (aged 55) Pasadena, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Mark Hopkins Institute of Art |
| Notable work | Published some of the first books using photography to illustrate literary works, including the first edition of The Rubaiyat |
| Spouse(s) | Arthur Gerald Leeson |
Adelaide Hanscom Leeson (25 November 1875 – 19 November 1931) was an early 20th-century artist and photographer who published some of the first books using photography to illustrate literary works.
Adelaide Marquand Hanscom was born in Empire City (now Coos Bay, Oregon) in 1875, the fourth of six surviving children born to Meldon LeRoy (1843–1919) and Louisa Hyde Hanscom (1845–1923). She was one of a set of twins, but the other child was still-born. Hanscom was named after Adelaide Marquand, an early proponent of universal suffrage. Marquand's husband, Henry, was a business associate of Meldon Hanscom, and later published the Berkeley Advocate. Adelaide Marquand was co-editor of the Advocate with her husband, and she remained a family friend and influence on Hanscom for many years.
When Hanscom was six, her family returned to their previous home city of Berkeley, California, in order to obtain a better education for the children. The Hanscoms established their residence at 1525 Walnut Street, where in 1902 Adelaide advertised her Berkeley portrait studio in the Directory. Her father was a Harvard University-educated businessman who later became the city auditor of Berkeley.
Adelaide began her career in the “traditional arts” and in the 1890s studied painting with local artists and design at the University of California. Between 1892 and 1900 she contributed her still lifes in pastel, crayon, oil and watercolors to the exhibits at the California State Fair in Sacramento and at the Mechanics’ Institute Fair in San Francisco. In 1896 the San Francisco Call reproduced her sketch entitled Coos River-Oregon; two years later she exhibited her miniatures painted on ivory at the San Francisco Art Association and briefly established a studio on Pine Street in that city. Between 1900 and 1902 she studied at the California School of Design in San Francisco’s Mark Hopkins Institute of Art (now the San Francisco Art Institute) under Arthur Mathews, Alice Chittenden, and Frederick Meyer, but did not graduate believing it to be unimportant. In tandem with her formal education she studied photography in private with her former classmates Emily Pitchford and Laura Adams, who had recently established their own photographic studio. She also is known to have frequented the home of photographer Anne Brigman and is thought to have learned some of her printing technique from Brigman.
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