T. O'Conor Sloane, Jr.

T(homas) O’Conor Sloane, Jr. (1879–1963) was a professional photographer.

Sloane was born in 1879 in Brooklyn, New York but spent much of his adult life in South Orange, New Jersey. Sloane was already photographing by the summer of 1894, when he photographically documented a week-long cruise with his father on a sloop yacht on Long Island Sound. Pictures of this trip survive in an album he compiled that is now at the Mystic Seaport Museum (Mystic, Connecticut).[1] Sloane was most active as a naturalistic photographer at the turn of the twentieth century, garnering much acclaim for his gum bichromate work.[2][3][4] In Sloane's early twenties, he focused primarily on portraiture,[5] becoming a professional sometime thereafter.[6]

Sloane was perhaps an unlikely photographer, having graduated from Columbia University with a degree in electrical engineering like his father, T. O'Conor Sloane, a noted scientist, prodigious author of scientific books and articles, and the editor of Amazing Stories. Sloane's brother, John Eyre Sloane, married Thomas Edison's daughter Madeleine. Sloane had worked as a research assistant at Columbia before pursuing his passion for photography.[7]

Sloane began exhibiting with Alfred Stieglitz's cadre of artistic amateur photographers at The Camera Club of New York and in 1902 was an original member of the influential Photo-Secession movement,[8] with his work appearing in that year's National Arts Club exhibition.

By 1931 Sloane had relocated to Westport, Connecticut where in 1935 he was commissioned by the Westport Preservation Alliance to photograph the historic houses of Westport.[9] His photos were black and white using glass plate negatives.

Sloane remained active until the 1940s, when a diving accident severely impaired his eyesight.

Sloane's work can be found in art auctions,[10][11][12][13] public and private collections,[14] exhibitions, and museums across the nation; including the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[15]