Karl Struss studied with Clarence White from 1908 to 1912, and his talent was soon discovered by Alfred Stieglitz who published eight photogravures by Struss in the April 1912 issue of Camera Work. That same year Struss became a member of Stieglitz’s Photo-Secession. Significantly, Struss was one of the first photographers to use modernist compositions in his pictorialist photographs. In 1916 he co-founded the Pictorial Photographers of America. Struss became a successful commercial photographer, with work appearing in Vogue, Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar. After WWI, Struss moved to Hollywood, where he had a second career as an Academy Award winning cinematographer working for Cecil B. DeMille and others.