Evelyn Gittings 1925

In 1919,

my grandfather, Paul Linwood Gittings Sr., began his photographic career

as a plateboy for David Bachrach at the Bachrach studios of Baltimore.

Paul Linwood Gittings was the only child of Thomas and Addie (Jefferson) Gittings. His family suffered financial hardship after his father lost his job as a trolley-car painter, and at age eleven Gittings left school to work as an office boy.He labored at a series of odd jobs until 1919, when he began working as a plate boy in the studio of Walter Bachrach, the leading photographer of the upper class along the East Coast and in the upper Midwest. At Bachrach's studio Gittings learned to take and develop photographs and absorbed important lessons in selling psychology. Bachrach used a glamorous ambience and high prices to lure wealthy patrons, who in turn imparted their social cachet to the studio name; this strategy later formed the basis of Gittings's success in Texas.

For nine years Gittings climbed the ranks in the Bachrach organization,

eventually becoming a photographer on the road in the Midwest and Canada and training other photographers in the company. In 1924 he married Evelyn May Pittsworth in Baltimore; they had a son and a daughter. In August 1928 Gittings moved to Houston and established Bachrach studios in Houston and Dallas. Five years later the Bachrach company was forced to retrench and sold the Texas studios to Gittings at one-fourth of their value. During the height of the Great Depression, Gittings managed to establish his reputation as a luxury photographer by sinking $2,000 into radio advertising and by developing a flattering portrait style that frequently employed candles in portraits of women as well as a popular pewter-toned finish.

In 1947 Gittings became one of the first photographers in Texas to offer dye-transfer color photographs to the public. He sold the expensive process by enhancing color photographs as portraits: he offered large formats that mimicked the size of paintings and encouraged customers to frame and illuminate color photographs as they would a painting. Gittings also introduced the idea of marketing photographic galleries of distinguished groups. The Gittings galleries of business executives, civic leaders, and educators became series that had to be enlarged over time and generated ongoing publicity for the studio and photographic orders from the Texas elite. Members of leading Texas families were recorded in Gittings's portraits, as were such celebrities as John Wayne, Barry Goldwater, Princess Grace of Monaco, Nancy Reagan, Sophia Loren, and John Connally. The bulk of Gittings's business, however, came from middle-class brides and executives who wished to identify themselves and their families with the upper-crust Gittings image.

In later years Gittings lectured on photography in Europe and throughout the United States. He taught at the Winona School of Photography in Winona Lake, Indiana (now located in Des Plaines, Illinois) and served many years as a member of the school's board of trustees. Gittings was named a fellow of the Royal Photographic Society and the Photographic Society of America, an honorary fellow of the Institute of Incorporated Photographers, the British Institute of Photography, and the American Society of Photographers, and was an honorary master of photography. As president of the Professional Photographers Association of America in 1954, he was credited with restoring sound business management to that organization and encouraging its affiliation with many regional, state, and local photography associations. Three years later the PPAA presented Gittings with the George Harris Award, the highest honor given to commercial photographers. Gittings's business continued to grow during this period: in 1964 his son, Paul, opened the first out-of-state Gittings studio in Phoenix, Arizona, and by 1972 the operation had extended to Kansas City and Atlanta, with representatives in sixty cities in Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

He became close friends witHe became close friends with Yousuf Karsh, Alfred Steiglitz and Murice Tubard.

In 1973 Gittings retired and moved to Dallas, but continued to serve as chairman of the trustees of the Gittings Foundation. In 1987 his daughter, Myrl, sold the Gittings company to Paul Skipworth, who continued to operate the studios under the name Gittings. Gittings lectured and took photographs for his own pleasure until his death, in Dallas on February 7, 1988. His work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution, the Chicago Museum of Arts and Sciences, the Boston Camera Club, and the Royal Photographic Society. Examples are included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Photographic Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where Gittings had served as chairman of the board of trustees.

 

 

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY: 

Ava Crofford, The Diamond Years of Texas Photography (Austin, 1975). Dallas Morning News, February 8, 1988. Paul Linwood Gittings, Color Portraiture (Houston: Gulf, 1968). Nicholas Lemann, "The Gittings People," Texas Monthly, March 1983. Vertical Files, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.

Paul Gittings was close to Yosuf Karsh and Murice Tubard.

Yosuf Karsh

Murice Tubard

DALLAS and HOUSTON

In the 20's, my grandfather traveled between Dallas and Houston once a week. On the weekends, he and my grandmother developed the negatives,made the prints and on Sunday, the book-keeping.

Somewhere in the 30's, they moved the laboratory into the M&M building in Houston. Gittings opened an executive studio studio in the downtown Houston RICE HOTEL and the old studio on D'Amico (off Allen Parkway).

In Dallas, Gittings opened a studio in Neiman Marcus. In the 40's, Gittings expanded the D'amico space and relocated the laboratory from the M&M building to this location.

Paul Linwood Gittings Jr.

Married Ann Smith Gittings

born 1929

Parents of Neil,Vince and Paul Gittings III

Paul Linwood Gittings Jr.

circa 1949

Along with his father, Paul Gittings Jr. expanded the family business. He helped to build the labora

Along with his father, Paul Gittings Jr. expanded the family business. He helped to build the laboratory at D'Amico, Houston. This lab serviced NASA,the Shaw of Iran,and countless photographers across the world. At the D'Amico lab, we made some of the first prints from the Apollo moon missions, including the famous Earth-rise.

During the Korean war,

Paul Gittings jr. photographed many nuclear tests in New Mexico and Nevada for the U.S. Army

Around 1989, Paul Jr. and his sister Myrle Gittings Deaver

sold thier interest in the family company to Paul Skipworh

who later passed the company over to Greg Lorphing.

The Gittings Family in 1974

COPYRIGHT 2008 BY NEIL GITTINGS