Ruth Mathilda Anderson
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Ruth Matilda Anderson (Cottonwood State Farm, Nebraska 1893 – New York, 1983) was an American photographer and translator. She was best known for her work focusing on Spanish society and culture.
Life and career[edit]
Anderson was introduced to photography by her father, Alfred Theodore Anderson, a Norwegian specialist in landscapes and portraits. She spent a year at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and afterwards did her degree in education at Nebraska State Teachers College, graduating in 1915. She resumed her university studies for a semester and then moved to New York, graduating from the Clarence H. White School of Photography in 1919.
In the early 1920’s, whilst working as an interior designer, she was hired by the Hispanic Society of America on the recommendation of Clarence White. There, she was under the tutelage of the founder and director of the institution, Archer Milton Huntington, and she began to work as a museum photographer, later promoted to curator of photography in 1922.
In 1924 the Hispanic Society of America entrusted the young photographer to document the daily life of rural Galicians, which was threatened by the arrival of modernity.[1]. Anderson would go on to compile a collection of more than 5,000 photographs, creating the most important documentary and ethnographic project about Galicia.
During the 1920’s, Anderson made five important journeys, not just to Galicia but also to many other regions in Spain. Firstly, she explored the whole country from March to June of 1923. Then, in the following three years she visited the north, in particular Galicia, Asturias, and León, and from 1927 to 1930 she travelled south to Extremadura, Castile, and Andalusia[2]
Later, she centred her career around the study of traditional Spanish costumes, a topic on which she published several books, and which brought her back to Spain between 1948 and 1949[3][4]. Anderson was appointed costume curator for the Hispanic Society in 1954, a position she held until her retirement.
In addition to her career as a photographer, Anderson dedicated herself to the translation of a variety of texts, such as medieval literature, proverbs, and some of the great names of Galician literature, in particular the author Rosalía de Castro. Anderson’s work was recovered by Alba Rodríguez Saavedra in an article for ‘Viceversa’, the magazine journal of the University of Vigo, Spain[5]. These translations appeared as additional content in her book Gallegan provinces of Spain, Pontevedra and La Coruña (published in New York at the end of the Spanish civil war, in 1939)[6]. However, the existence of these works was unknown in Galicia, since the book had not been distributed in Spain.
To translate these texts, Anderson learned to speak Galician without using Spanish as an intermediary language, and she even recorded its dialectical variants.
Galicia[edit]
In 1924, accompanied by her father, she began a tour of Galicia which lasted for about a year, carrying out a commission for the Hispanic Society of America. Her aim was to capture rural life and the working class, focusing on the topics of greatest contemporary public interest. She returned, from 14th November 1925 to 31st May 1926, alongside another photographer, Frances Spalding.
In 1939, she published a compilation of what she collected during her visits in The Gallegan Provinces of Spain: Pontevedra and La Coruña[6]. In said compilation, Anderson’s photographs focus on the daily life of women and children, revealing through these principal subjects the reality of Galician and Spanish life. Her work stands out as the American photographer neither censored nor judged what she saw or what she was told about the traditions, she merely recorded them objectively.
References[edit]
- ↑ Álvarez de la Granja, María (2021-10-29). "Jesús Camacho Niño (2017): Diccionario histórico de la terminología metalexicográfíca. A Coruña: Universidade da Coruña". Verba: Anuario Galego de Filoloxía. 48. doi:10.15304/verba.48.7372. ISSN 2174-4017.
- ↑ Lenaghan, Patrick (2002). Salamanca, 1928-1930 : fotografías de Ruth M. Anderson : [exposición] (in Spanish). Salamanca: Salamanca Diputación de Salamanca.CS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link) Search this book on
- ↑ Matilda, Anderson, Ruth (1951). Extremadura : Spanish costume. The Hispanic Society of America. OCLC 971861806. Search this book on
- ↑ Matilda., Anderson, Ruth (1957). Costumes : painted by Sorolla in his Provinces of Spain. The Hispanic Society of America. OCLC 801964711. Search this book on
- ↑ Saavedra, Alba Rodriguez (2021-04-13). "De Rosalía de Castro a Ruth Matilda Anderson. Feminismo e paratradución". Viceversa. Revista galega de tradución (in galego): 31–45. doi:10.35869/viceversa.v0i21.3456. ISSN 1135-8920.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Matilda., Anderson, Ruth (1939). Gallegan provinces of Spain Pontevedra and La Coruña. Printed by order of the Trustees. OCLC 610120119. Search this book on
External links[edit]
'Bibliography of Ruth on the website 'Way Back Machine'
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