Horace A. Latimer was among the few photographers who were vital during both the first and second wave of pictorialism, before and after World War I. He resided all of his adult life in Boston, after being born on February 1, 1860, in Westfield, Massachusetts. Independently wealthy, he spent much of his time traveling and photographing. Latimer attended Williams College and Harvard University, and pursued painting for a time. By 1887, however, he had turned his attention to photography. In this year, work by Latimer appeared in the first Joint Exhibition, the initial showing of a series of significant exhibitions sponsored by the Boston Camera Club and photographic societies in New York and Philadelphia. In fact, he participated in all seven of the Joint Exhibitions. Latimer joined the Camera Club of New York as a nonresident member in 1897 and was privileged to have one of his pictures appear as a photogravure in its magazine, Camera Notes. This image, A Water Carrier—Cuba, was the frontispiece for the October 1902 issue. The original probably was either a gum-bichromate or carbon print, the two processes he preferred for his artistic photographs.

Latimer appears to have been less active photographically beginning in 1910 for nearly a decade. But, in 1918 he resumed exhibiting, successfully sending his prints to the Toronto salon and, the next year, to Los Angeles and Pittsburgh. During the 1920s, and up until his death in 1931, he exhibited at additional photographic salons in Buffalo, Chicago, London, Montreal, and Oakland. Horace A. Latimer’s presence in the photographic world abruptly ceased in 1931, when he died on September 13. [1]

A Water Carrier – Cuba appeared in Camera Notes Vol. 6 No. 2 in 1902, however this print is a freestanding print produced by Latimer himself and signed in pencil on the mount. Its origins at this time are not known.