{{Short description|British photographer (1857–1939)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{for-multi|the American journalist|Alice Hughes (journalist)|the Hong Kong-based educator|Alice Catherine Hughes}} {{Infobox artist | name = Alice Hughes | image = Alice Hughes - Professional Women Upon Their Professions.png | caption = Illustration of Alice Hughes, unknown artist | birth_date = {{birth date|1857|8|31|df=y}} | birth_place = London, England | death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1939|4|4|1857|8|31}} | death_place = Worthing, England | family = Edward Hughes (father) }}
'''Alice Mary Hughes''' (31 August 1857 – 4 April 1939) was a British portrait photographer and businesswoman specializing in images of royalty, fashionable women and children.<ref name=ODNB>{{cite ODNB|id=65306|title=Hughes, Alice Mary|first=Juliet|last=Hacking}}</ref>
== Biography == Alice Hughes was the eldest daughter of the portrait painter Edward Hughes (1832–1908). After studying photography at the London Polytechnic she opened a studio in 1891 next to her father's in Gower Street, London, which she operated until December 1910.<ref>[http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp07949/alice-hughes "Alice Hughes"], National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 11 March 2013.</ref> In her day, she was a leading photographer of royalty, fashionable women and children, producing elegant platinotype prints. During her most successful periods, she employed up to 60 women and took up to 15 sittings a day.<ref name=bloomsbury>[http://www.ucl.ac.uk/bloomsbury-project/institutions/photographic_studio_gower.htm "Photographic Studio"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304074539/http://www.ucl.ac.uk/bloomsbury-project/institutions/photographic_studio_gower.htm |date=4 March 2016 }}, UCL Bloomsbury project. Retrieved 11 March 2013.</ref> In 1914, for a short period before the First World War, she ran a business in Berlin but returned to London at the beginning of the war, opening a studio in Ebury Street in 1915.<ref name=bloomsbury/><ref name="Gernsheim1962">{{cite book|author=Helmut Gernsheim|title=Creative Photography: Aesthetic Trends, 1839-1960|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ajAHXtE3XiwC&pg=PA238|accessdate=11 March 2013|year=1962|publisher=Courier Dover Publications|isbn=978-0-486-26750-0|pages=238–}}</ref> The Ebury Street studio was not as successful as her first business and she closed it in 1933, retiring to Worthing where she died after a fall in her bedroom in 1939.<ref name=photoLondon>[https://www.photolondon.org.uk/#/details?id=4036 "Hughes, Alice Mary"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231219150757/https://www.photolondon.org.uk/#/details?id=4036 |date=19 December 2023 }}, photoLondon. Retrieved 11 March 2013.</ref>
From 1898 to 1909, she contributed several hundred portraits to ''Country Life''. In 1910, she sold 50,000 negatives to Speaight Ltd.<ref name=photoLondon/>
== Assessment == A pioneer of portrait photography, Hughes developed a distinctive style "by fusing the conventions of society portraiture with the cool, monochromatic tones of the platinum print." (From ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''.)<ref name=bloomsbury/>
== Gallery == <gallery mode="packed" heights="200px"> File:Queen Mary 1905.jpg|Queen Mary (1905) File:LadyJellicoe1917.jpg|Lady Jellicoe (1917) File:Pauline-Astor-1904.jpg|Pauline Astor (1904) File:Alexandra of Denmark (1902).jpg|Alexandra of Denmark (1902) </gallery>
== References == {{Reflist}}
== Further reading == {{Commons category}} * {{cite book|last=Hughes|first=Alice|title=My Father and I|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vrxsGQAACAAJ|year=1923|publisher=T. Butterworth, Limited}} * {{cite book|last1=Heron|first1=Liz|last2=Williams|first2=Val|title=Illuminations: Women Writing on Photography from the 1850s to the Present|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BQDe2iORWp4C&pg=PA3|year=1996|publisher=I.B.Tauris|isbn=978-1-86064-041-4|pages=3–}}
{{19th-century English photographers}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Alice Mary}} Category:British portrait photographers Category:1857 births Category:1939 deaths Category:19th-century English photographers Category:19th-century English women artists Category:20th-century English women artists Category:19th-century British women photographers Category:19th-century British photographers Category:20th-century British women photographers Category:English women photographers Category:Photographers from London Category:Accidental deaths from falls in the United Kingdom Category:Accidental deaths in England