Margrethe Mather Portrait Photography

Margrethe Mather was an American photographer. Mather was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, the second of four children born to Gabriel Lundberg Youngreen and Ane Sofie Laurentzen. Her parents were Danish immigrants who had been converted to the Mormon faith by a missionary in Denmark. Her mother died while giving birth to her fourth child in 1889. When she was born, Mather was named Emma Caroline Youngreen. In 1906, Mather moved to San Francisco, perhaps in response to calls for aid after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Within two years after moving, she changed her name, assuming the last name of her former landlord and the first name of her maternal grandmother, Margrethe Laurentzen. In 1912 Mather moved to Los Angeles, where, according to her friend Billy Justema, she made a living primarily as a prostitute for several years. Soon after moving there, she joined the Los Angeles Camera Club and also became involved with a circle of self-styled anarchists who were followers of Emma Goldman. Within a year, Mather was part of a growing Bohemian movement in the city that included actors, artists, writers and advocates for social and political change. She was one of the best known female photographers of the early 20th century. Initially, she was influenced by Edward Weston while working in the pictorial style, but she independently developed a strong eye for patterns and design that transformed some of her photographs into modernist abstract art. Mather lived a mostly uncompromising lifestyle in Los Angeles that alternated between her photography and the creative Hollywood community of the 1920s and 1930s. In later life, she abandoned photography, and she died unrecognized for her photographic accomplishments. Mather died on Christmas Day in 1952.