Two women

item details

NameTwo women

ProductionGeorge Crummer; photographer; circa 1914; Cook Islands

Classificationblack-and-white negatives

Materialssheet glass, silver, photographic plates

Materials Summaryblack and white gelatin glass negative

Techniquesblack-and-white photography

Dimensions4.5, 6.5

Registration NumberB.027758

Overview

Full length portrait of two women (probably related) wearing straw hats, long dresses and holding bunches of flowers.

This extract originally appeared in New Zealand Photography Collected: 175 Years of Photography in Aotearoa (Te Papa Press, 2025).

George Crummer was born in New Zealand but lived in the Cook Islands from the early 1890s, where he married a Cook Island woman. He operated as a trader and photographer, and was also a bioscope (cinema) operator for a time. He does not seem to have had a studio, as most of his portraits of locals are taken outdoors with improvised backgrounds. In this case, an assistant sits on top of a tivaevae quilt. His presence, the figure-ground pattern of the tivaevae, and the deterioration of the negative around its edges combine to create an inadvertent second image that competes with the portrait of the women.