{{Short description|British photographer (1869–1919)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox artist | name = Lallie Charles | image = Lallie Charles self-portrait.jpg | imagesize = | caption = Self-portrait, 1900s | birth_name = Charlotte Elizabeth Martin | birth_date = {{Birth date text|1869}} | birth_place = Ireland | death_date = {{Death year and age|1919|1869}} | death_place = Mayfair, London, United Kingdom | education = | field = Photography | training = | movement = | works = | patrons = | awards = | spouse = }}
'''Lallie Charles''' (née '''Charlotte Elizabeth Martin'''; 1869–1919), was an Irish photographer. Along with her sister Rita Martin, she was one of the most commercially successful women portraitists of the early 20th century.<ref name="The Hyman Collection">{{cite web|title=Lallie Charles|url=http://www.britishphotography.org/artists/19188/statement/lallie-charles|website=The Hyman Collection|accessdate=18 January 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Otto|first1=Whitney|title=Eight Girls Taking Pictures: A Novel|date=2013|publisher=Simon and Schuster|page=49|isbn=9781451682724|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oopVMobHlBsC&pg=PA49|accessdate=18 January 2018}}</ref>
Lallie Charles was born in Ireland. In about 1895, she married London photographer Georges Garet-Charles, whom she divorced around 1902.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Charles, Lallie|url=https://www.photolondon.org.uk/#/details?id=1443|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231219150757/https://www.photolondon.org.uk/#/details?id=1443|archive-date=19 December 2023|access-date=2020-06-06|website=photolondon.org.uk|url-status=dead}}</ref> Her second husband was Herbert Carr.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Herbert Carr - National Portrait Gallery |url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp91660/herbert-carr |access-date=2023-08-31 |website=www.npg.org.uk |language=en}}</ref>
She was a society photographer. In 1896, she opened her first studio, The Nook, at 1 Titchfield Road, Regent's Park, London. In 1897, Rita Martin, her sister, went to work with her.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Rideal|first1=Liz|author-link=Liz Rideal |title=Mirror, Mirror: Self-portraits by Women Artists|date=2002|publisher=Watson-Guptill Publications|page=[https://archive.org/details/mirrormirrorself0000ride/page/46 46]|url=https://archive.org/details/mirrormirrorself0000ride|url-access=registration|accessdate=18 January 2018}}</ref> In 1906, Martin opened her own studio at 27 Baker Street and the two sisters became competitors.<ref>{{cite book|title=British photographers|date=1944|page=30|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0zhSAQAAIAAJ|accessdate=18 January 2018|last1=Beaton|first1=Cecil}}</ref> The following year, Charles moved to 39A Curzon Street, where she became the "foremost female portrait photographer of her day".<ref>{{cite web|title=Mirror-Mirror Portrait 7|date=2023|url=https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2001/mirror-mirror-self-portraits-by-women-artists/portrait-7|accessdate=12 March 2023|last1=Charles|first1=Lallie}}</ref>
One of her portraits of a young girl was coloured and used as the cover image for the first issue of ''The'' ''Royal Magazine'' published by Sir Arthur Pearson in November 1898.<ref>{{Cite web |last=ISSN 1756-364X |first=Anthony Quinn tony [at] magforum com |title=Profiles of modern and historic British monthly and fiction magazines and periodicals |url=http://www.magforum.com/british-monthly-magazines/british-monthly-magazines.htm#roy |access-date=2023-08-29 |website=www.magforum.com |language=en-GB}}</ref>
Charles was inspired by Alice Hughes. Other pioneer women photographers of her time, other than her sister, were: Christina Broom, Kate Pragnell and Lizzie Caswall Smith.<ref>{{cite web|title=Women Pioneers|url=http://www.britishphotography.org/online-exhibitions/2165/women-pioneers?p=all&type=list|website=The Hyman Collection|accessdate=18 January 2018|archive-date=26 February 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190226045712/http://www.britishphotography.org/online-exhibitions/2165/women-pioneers?p=all&type=list|url-status=dead}}</ref> Mme Yevonde was an apprentice of Charles, and Cecil Beaton, as a young man, posed for a family portrait, an experience he described in his book ''Photobiography''.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Doy|first1=Gen|title=Picturing the Self: Changing Views of the Subject in Visual Culture|date=2005|publisher=I.B.Tauris|page=[https://archive.org/details/picturingselfcha0000doyg/page/115 115]|url=https://archive.org/details/picturingselfcha0000doyg|url-access=registration|accessdate=18 January 2018}}</ref> Talking about the sisters, Beaton said: "Rita Martin and her sister, Lallie Charles, the rival photographer, posed their sitters in a soft conservatory-looking light, making all hair deliriously fashionable to be photo-lowered".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Beaton|first1=Cecil|title=The Book Of Beauty|date=1933|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.218224|accessdate=18 January 2018}}</ref> She died in Mayfair, London, on 5 April 1919.<ref name=":0" />
A small selection of negatives by Lallie Charles and Rita Martin is preserved at the National Portrait Gallery, donated by their niece Lallie Charles Cowell in 1994.<ref name="National Portrait Gallery">{{cite web|title=Lallie Charles (née Charlotte Elizabeth Martin)|url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp17338/lallie-charles-nee-charlotte-elizabeth-martin|website=National Portrait Gallery|accessdate=18 January 2018}}</ref>
==Gallery== <gallery mode="packed"> File:Anitastewart 4.jpg|Anita de Braganza File:Mary Innes-Ker, Duchess of Roxburghe.png|Mary Goelet File:Chrissie White postcard.JPG|Chrissie White File:Ellis Jeffreys Rotary postcard crop.jpg|Ellis Jeffreys File:Henrietta Watson postcard.jpg|Henrietta Watson File:Isobel Elsom postcard crop.jpg|Isobel Elsom File:Maud of Fife.jpg|Maud of Fife File:Pauline Chase 9.jpg|Pauline Chase File:Stephanie Of belgium 1864-4.jpg|Stephanie of Belgium File:Adrienne Augarde 1907.jpg|Adrienne Augarde File:Edna May, by Lallie Charles.jpg|Edna May File:Ruth Vincent, by Lallie Charles.jpg|Ruth Vincent File:Princess Victoria of Wales, 2nd daughter of Edward VII, King of the United Kingdom (1868-1935).jpg|Princess Victoria of the United Kingdom File:Winifred Barnes Portrait ca. 1916.jpg|Winifred Barnes File:MayLeslieStuart1910.jpg|May Leslie Stuart </gallery>
==References== {{Commons category}} {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Charles, Lallie}} Category:1869 births Category:1919 deaths Category:English women photographers Category:19th-century British women photographers Category:20th-century British photographers Category:20th-century British women photographers Category:19th-century Irish photographers Category:20th-century Irish photographers Category:19th-century Irish women artists Category:20th-century Irish women artists Category:Irish women photographers Category:19th-century English women artists Category:20th-century English women artists Category:20th-century English artists Category:Irish portrait photographers