CURRENT PROJECTS
The Lawrence House and Studio
About the H.W. Lawrence Family
The Lawrence Studio
“Honesty Our Policy – Success Our Reward”
1904 - 1913
When photographer Haakon W. Lawrence arrived in Ellsworth, Wisconsin, in 1904, he had spent nearly a decade searching for a permanent place to settle and practice photography. Few of his early photos from Minnesota survive, but several in the Lawrence family collection demonstrate Haakon’s eye for composition and lighting, as well as an adventurous streak.
Ellsworth, as the Pierce County seat, was expected to grow, and for Haakon, that meant new and ongoing satisfied customers. He established himself in business and then brought his wife, Julia, and their four young children from Minnesota. In 1908, he bought the photography studio, built in 1896 by A.D. Miller, on Main Street, just west of the first Lord Abstract building.
The one-story frame building was small. Miller had added living quarters to the back of it in 1897, and it’s likely that Lawrence rented it from 1904 to 1908. This second room and possible sleeping loft, would have been tight for a family of six, but the studio allowed Haakon to make a living from portraiture and gave him a place to develop his glass plate negatives.
Supplementary income came from real photo postcards of Ellsworth landmarks, Main Street, and businesses, signed with “Lawrence” or “HWL.” Popular replacements for letters through World War I, post cards could be mailed inexpensively. They shared family portraits and attractive points of interest with the recipients. And they communicated upward mobility through images of newly built houses, barns, and businesses.
In 1913, Lawrence expanded by buying the Lord Abstract Company next to the studio. The building, built in 1879 for Clark Brown, was brought by John Denniston in 1886 and used as an insurance office. Denniston sold it in 1900 to Fred Lord for his Lord Abstract company. It was similar in construction to the studio building-—a clapboard-sided frame structure without a basement beneath it, and a false front containing two windows and a central door. The abstract building, however, contained a vault at the rear that could be used for secure storage.
The buildings stood just four feet apart, so two months after the purchase, Lawrence joined the two beneath one roof to create a more modern and spacious studio layout. Shelves and closets added storage for props and chemicals. Space became available for a dark room, where he developed photographs and Julia printed them.
The former Abstract building provided a new entrance to the studio and a storefront room with display cases that held sample photographs, frames, cameras and film for the growing hobby of “Kodakery.” Jewelry was added at the suggestion of a Josten’s ring salesman, a smart business decision. The front interior of the showroom was paneled with dark pink paneling and a pink and white patterned ceiling made of a “green” composite known as “corn board”.
Lawrence installed floor to ceiling windows in the west wall of the original studio building possibly around the same time as a new bungalow was connected to it in the early 1920s. These windows would have allowed natural light to broaden the range of Lawrence’s interior images and later helped watercolorists when tinting portraits. Sky lights were later added and the roof and windows redesigned and replaced.
When the Lawrence bungalow was connected to the west side of the original studio building, the clapboard studio wall was covered in painted tin “faux block” sheeting to match the concrete block exterior of the house. This wall as well as the exterior of both studio buildings were later covered with stucco, which remains today. One of the original studio windows facing Main Street was also replaced.
1926 - 1950
The success of the Lawrence Studio was due to the combined abilities of family members. Julia possessed business and organization skills while Haakon, Hilma and Opal possessed artistic talent and technical skill. Haakon continued for decades to use his large box camera to create images on glass plate negatives. Most of them were interior portraits of wedding parties, engaged couples, anniversary celebrants, graduates, children and babies. He used a number of backdrops and furniture props, and after the west windows were closed off, high intensity lamps similar to stage lights.
To develop mastery in developing his glass plates, Haakon needed persistence and great attention to detail. Combining chemicals and timing the development process precisely enough to produce pleasing photographs was tedious and sometimes frustrating. His retail prices rarely reimbursed him for his time, prompting Haakon in later years to compare darkroom work to slave labor.
1950 - 1977
After Haakon’s death in 1950, Julia, Hilma, and Opal carried on the business, with Hilma as photographer. Photography had changed as developing and printing black and white film became less complicated. Popular black and white potraiture in the 1940s was enlarged and printed on 8 ½ x 11-inch paper and tinted by a colorist. Haakon taught Opal the techniques and she improved her skill by taking classes with experts in the field. After Julia died in 1962, the sisters carried on selling film, cameras and jewelry in addition to photographs. The studio doors closed for good in 1977.
When the Pierce County Historical Association assumed possession of the Lawrence buildings in 2011, a number of cameras, painted backdrops, studio lights, furniture props, photographs, glass negatives, and vintage equipment and supplies were found and inventoried. Identifying the people and places in the thousands of images is an ongoing project. The earliest images of Ellsworth and the surrounding area are priceless. Lawrence Studio postcards, most created between 1905 and 1920, can still be found in private and dealer collections.