Wallace Nutting Library

Nutting Studio Colorist

This photograph of five Nutting colorist was taken at the Wallace Nutting Collectors Club convention in Saugus, Massachusetts, in the 1970's. The colorist are from left to right: Helen Goss Stackhouse, Leola Grant, Dorothy Ryan, Elizabeth Johnson and Dorothy Bacon.

This "get well" card was made by Ernest John Donelly for Nutting colorist Leola Grant while she was hospitalized.

The caricatures are head colorist Esther "Mopsy" Svensen, fellow colorist Dorothy "Totsy" Neil and Nutting's business manager Ernest John "Hotsy" Donelly.

At the height of his business Wallace Nutting employed as many as two hundred girls to apply the color to his black and white platinum paper photographs. They worked from a set of coloring instructions that would detail what color to apply in what area. One important element of a really good hand colored photograph has to be the artistic skills of the individual colorist. Some were more talented than others.

If you can identify any of the colorist in this circa 1912 photograph, please send the details to me by e-mail.

You can access a web page that of some of the models Wallace Nutting employed.