Alice Austen House Museum

Shore Acres
Staten Island

I had been trying to drag my boyfriend to visit the Alice Austen House Museum, a.k.a. Clear Comfort, in Staten Island for months. Finally, I had the excuse of my impending birthday to get him to do whatever I wanted. Alice Austen (1866 - 1952) was an early American photographer, and, as she began photographing at the age of ten, she was also one of America’s youngest. My areas of art historical focus while earning my Master’s at Pratt Institute were photography and women artists, so naturally I was fascinated by this relatively new museum at Staten Island. I even tried to get an internship there during my graduate studies, but, alas, it was snatched up by another Pratt grad student.

I’d like to think that it was anticipation that led to my disappointment of the Austen House, but it wasn’t; unfortunately, it was the Museum itself.

The Alice Austen House Museum has so much potential to be amazing that its actuality is a great letdown. The tour of the home begins with a 22-minute PBS documentary called “Alice’s World” that seems to have been made in the 1980s and is most definitely worse for wear. Though not a comment on Austen’s work or the video, while watching the documentary both my boyfriend and I got mysterious insect bites on one finger each. This may also have colored the rest of the visit.

After watching the video—which, by the way, completely side-steps the fact that Austen was a lesbian and instead repeatedly alludes to the fact that she “never married.” In fact, try as one might, it seems to be impossible to find the words “Alice Austen” and “lesbian,” “gay,” or “homosexual” in the same sentence. The guide, the Museum’s didactics, her Wikipedia entry, gently refer to her life-long partner Gertrude Tate as her “friend” or her “companion.” The House’s website does go so far as to call them a “couple” and refer to Austen’s family as being concerned over Austen’s “devotion” to Tate, but it’s all very Victorian and demure. It seems a pity that an organization in desperate need of tourist dollars should seem to go out of its way to avoid attracting LGBT visitors. The queer community is nothing if not supportive of its own and if the Alice Austen House could stop being so delicate, it might be able to afford some better displays. Speaking of which, back to my initial thought.

After watching the video, a well-meaning woman (the House is run by a volunteer group called the Friends of Alice Austen) gave us a “tour” of the home. Said tour consisted of her pointing to a cluttered grouping of poorly-lit 5”x7” prints of Austen’s family and friends and saying, “That’s Alice’s friend so-and-so, and that’s Alice’s Uncle so-and-so, and that’s…” We then went into the restored living room, where the guide proceeded to point out whatever original furniture and decorations the Museum had managed to locate and have returned to or loaned to the exhibition. The rest of the Museum consists of a restored dining room (largely ignored by the guide though it appeared to contain a large portrait painting of Austen), two empty rooms painted white which hold rotating exhibitions by contemporary photographers, and a third white room with stacks of photography magazines and binders containing unlabeled, mediocre 8”x10” prints of Austen’s work. As of yet, the second floor is closed to visitors.

That, right now, is what the Alice Austen House Museum is. This is what I want it to be:

Austen’s original camera, a bulky dry-plate wooden box with tripod and bellows presented to her by a Danish sea captain uncle Oswald Müller, has been lost, and a similar camera along with some glass plates sit on a table behind a railing in the restored living room, far from where anyone can appreciate them. A room—or at the very least, a wall—needs to be dedicated to her early photographic processes. A glass plate lying on a table is not going excite anyone, especially in an era where few people use film, and younger generations don’t even know what it is. How amazing would it be to have a replica camera that visitors could touch and manipulate? To see how cumbersome it actually was to operate? And a glass plate lying on a table! Hang that up with some backlighting. Let visitors actually see the negatives—their size, their tonalities.

The Victorian family picture display in ornate frames cluttered on a wall of dark fabric doesn’t bother me. It has an authentic flavor. However, the foyer of the House has three of them, which is two too many. People don’t care about looking at family photographs of other people’s families, even if they were taken by a 19^th-century lesbian. Also inside the foyer is a display case filled with books published with Austen’s work, including an 1896 guide Bicycling for Ladies and a 1950s publication of early women photographers Revolt of Women. There are, however, no display copies or facsimiles out for the public to peruse. In the 1950s, after she was rediscovered, her work was published in Life and Holiday magazines. It would be wonderful to be able to flip through those rather than the stack of dated photography magazines in the “research” room.

The exhibition on display when I visited was quite timely, Foreclosed: Documents from the American Housing Crisis. It was also apropos as Austen had lost her home in 1945 after mortgaging it several times after she lost almost everything in the Crash of 1929. She and Tate also attempted various failed business ventures (including etiquette classes for children!) in an effort to maintain the house. The exhibition was well-done, especially as some images of Austen taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt were woven into the display. After the sale of her photographs in 1950 and 1951 saved her from dying in the poor house (literally—Austen was living at the Staten Island Farm Colony; Tate’s family took her in, but refused to admit her lover), Austen returned for a final visit to Clear Comfort before ending her days in a comfortable nursing home paid for by the late sales of her work.

However, the relative professionalism of the rotating exhibition only makes the poor display of Austen’s work more obvious. The Staten Island Historical Society owns Austen’s 3500 original glass negatives and has made many lovely large prints of them—some originally to show to Austen to get descriptive information. The video and guide harp on how cutting edge and proficient Austen was, yet the images the Museum has chosen to display do not demonstrate this skill. Many of them are boring and poorly printed. The most interesting images done by Austen can be found on the Museum’s website, not on the House’s walls. The best prints in the House are actually in the two bathrooms. So be sure to check those out. They’re also the largest; perhaps those were donated by the Staten Island Historical Society?

I got the distinct sense that there was a bit of animosity between the Friends of Alice Austen and the Staten Island Historical Society. Whatever the reason for their tensions, the Friends need to find a way to work with the Historical Society to get more well-printed, interesting images on the walls of the Austen House. And, while they’re at it, maybe not leave the best ones they have right now in the bathrooms. A photograph of a pretzel vendor taken by Alice Austen is part of an exhibition at the New York Public Library on 42^nd Street (review to follow shortly); it’s a little small and a little dark, but it captures of magic of street life in New York City at the turn of the century. There are too few of such images on display at the actual Alice Austen House Museum.

To improve visitor experiences the Friends of Alice Austen might consider the following:

Apply for some much-needed LGBT grant monies and use said funds to renovate and open the second floor which will free up space for a full-room interactive display of early photography equipment and techniques.

Make nice with the Staten Island Historical society to fill that second floor with examples of Austen’s work that better illustrate her skill.

Pay an exterminator to get rid of those damn bugs.

Toss out the dusty photography magazines and binders of sad little gray prints and replace them with browsing copies of Austen’s published works.

Just maybe then the Alice Austen House Museum will become a destination worth the journey to Staten Island. 

http://aliceausten.org/