Patricia Caulfield, who throughout her time as a high editor at Trendy Pictures journal within the Nineteen Sixties efficiently sued Andy Warhol for misappropriating an image she manufactured from hibiscus blossoms, then left the publication to grow to be an acclaimed nature photographer, died on July 16 in Manhattan. She was 91.
Her dying, at an assisted dwelling facility, was confirmed by her sister, Kathleen Corridor, her solely quick survivor.
After a few decade at Trendy Pictures, Ms. Caulfield turned its government editor in about 1964. Her photograph of an association of blossoms taken in Barbados appeared with an article within the June difficulty that 12 months.
Warhol quickly referred to as the journal wanting to purchase the photograph however felt the worth was too excessive. In response to the lawsuit, which Ms. Caulfield filed in November 1966, he then clipped the image from the journal, cropped it and produced silk display work from it for what turned his “Flowers” collection, first proven on the Leo Castelli Gallery in Manhattan in November 1964.
“He didn’t suppose it might be a giant factor, however ‘Flowers’ offered like loopy,” Ms. Corridor mentioned in a cellphone interview.
As a part of a settlement that Ms. Caulfield and Warhol finally reached, he created two new “Flowers” work for her (the Castelli gallery would promote them for $6,000) and agreed to pay her a 25 p.c share of the royalties derived from a portfolio of “Flowers” prints.
She left Trendy Pictures in 1967, impressed partially by an article she had written in regards to the nature photographer Eliot Porter and by an article in The New York Occasions a few drought within the Everglades. It was the start of a contract profession, one which didn’t earn her a lot cash however fulfilled her as a photojournalist whose pictures mirrored her rising curiosity in wildlife and the atmosphere.
“I suppose there’s the hope any individual may even see my images and suppose, ‘that’s a beautiful animal, possibly it’s price making an effort to save lots of,’” she instructed the Knight-Ridder Information Wire in 1977. “However no less than I’m efficient in making a report of one thing earlier than all of it will get ruined.”
She started making journeys to the Everglades within the late Nineteen Sixties. One image reveals an alligator, illuminated by Ms. Caulfield, with its mouth open and framed by tall grass. One other is of a snail climbing a tree.
Her e book “The Everglades” (1970) offered 66 of her images and was accompanied by choices from the work of the author and naturalist Peter Matthiessen and an essay by John G. Mitchell, the editor in chief of the Sierra Membership, which printed the e book.
Reviewing the e book for The Miami Herald, John Pennekamp, a columnist and Everglades conservationist, referred to as the images “extraordinary” and wrote that its large enchantment is “the weird circumstances beneath which the photographs should have been made.”
Patricia Marie Caulfield was born on March 17, 1932, in Chicago. Her household moved to New Hampton, Iowa, when she was within the second grade. Her father, John, was an ear, nostril and throat physician. Her mom, Marie (Schilling) Caulfield, was a nurse.
“As a baby, I used to be very animal-oriented,” Ms. Caulfield mentioned in an interview in 1978 with Backpacker journal, which referred to as her “most likely probably the most profitable feminine nature photographer within the nation.” She added, “I had a secret picture — a jungle lady — and I wasn’t comfortable in Iowa farm nation.”
She studied English and historical past on the College of Rochester, the place she appeared on a tv present through which the host, Beaumont Newhall, the curator of the George Eastman Home (now Museum), additionally in Rochester, taught her the fundamentals of images.
After graduating in 1953 with a bachelor’s diploma, she moved to San Francisco, the place she took images programs at evening on the Patri College of Artwork Fundamentals and labored in a digicam retailer in the course of the day. Her curiosity in photojournalism prompted her transfer to New York Metropolis, the place Trendy Pictures employed her as a secretary.
Ms. Caulfield rose although the journal’s ranks over 11 years or so till being named government editor. She was succeeded by Julia Scully, who died final month.
Ms. Caulfield’s travels, for Trendy Pictures and different publications, took her to Cambodia, the Galápagos Islands, Suriname, Guatemala, India, the Grand Canyon and the Ocklawaha River in Florida. Her work additionally appeared within the magazines Nationwide Geographic, Audubon, Smithsonian, Nikon World, Pure Historical past and The American Sportsman.
Her different books embrace “Photographing Wildlife: Methods for Portraying Animals in Pure Habitats” (1988) and “Capturing the Panorama With Your Digital camera: Methods for Photographing Vistas and Closeups in Nature” (1967).
She just lately donated her photographic archive to the Dolph Briscoe Middle for American Historical past on the College of Texas at Austin.
“She captured the Everglades at some extent that we might by no means understand it once more,” Newell Turner, a pal, mentioned in a cellphone interview. He added, “It was fairly radical, as a lady at the moment, to get deeply into the group of alligator hunters.”
Ms. Caulfield moved away from publishing images within the late Eighties, feeling “an absence of a help system within the subject, particularly as a lady,” in response to her Briscoe Middle biography. She enrolled on the Metropolis College of New York Graduate Middle, the place she spent a few decade finding out biology however didn’t end her Ph.D.
“She wasn’t essentially pursuing a level,” Mr. Turner mentioned. “She was finding out as a result of it was her ardour.”
By way of practically all her profession, she was a lady in a person’s world.
“The general public within the subject are males, and so they suppose ladies shouldn’t be doing what I’m doing,” Ms. Caulfield instructed Backpacker. “That’s an impediment.”