Photographer E.G. Barnhill promoted St. Pete in its formative years

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The James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art recently held an exhibit celebrating the work of acclaimed photographer and ethnologist Edward S. Curtis, best known for his monumental early 20^th-century publication, The North American Indian, a photographic documentation of indigenous Americans which took 23 years to complete.

He employed many photographic techniques and processes including photogravure, cyanotypes, platinum prints, silver bromide border print and sepia toning.

Curtis is also known for his gold-tone photographs printed on glass and backed with a liquid gold wash. While he did not invent the process, he was one of the first to experiment with it and perfect it. He took the liberty of calling the process “Curt-Tones.” The liquid wash was composed of powered gold pigment and typically banana oil.

While Curtis was photographing for the North American Indian series there was a far less celebrated photographer in St. Petersburg, Florida. His name was Esmond Grenard “E.G.” Barnhill. Born in 1894 in South Carolina, but raised in Georgia, he later relocated to Palm Beach, where he apprenticed as a photographer.

Barnhill arrived in St. Petersburg about 1913. After a few years he opened the Florida Photo Studio at 17 Third Street North. He began by processing film, especially for tourists, and selling cameras and other photo supplies. Barnhill also photographed notable scenes and landmarks about the city, and eventually had these reproduced as prints, postcards and artwork. He took photos of city attractions, such as the annual Festival of the States Parade. According to his son Jack, he sold Festival 8×10 glossy photo prints to tourists “by the thousands.”

As a youth, Barnhill made family trips to the west, sojourns he continued after arriving in St. Pete. In 1916 he made a trip to Alaska.

Barnhill biographer and fine arts and photography authority Gary Monroe, in his book E. G. Barnhill:  Florida Photographer, Adventurer, Entrepreneur, notes that “it is entirely possible that Barnhill first became familiar with (Edward) Curtis’s artistic practices during this 1916 trip …” It is known that Curtis was traveling extensively in the west in early 1916, and was also in Seattle, where his home and studio were located.

Barnhill continued his trips west throughout the 1920s and later. In addition to his profession as a photographer, he became an entrepreneur developing Indian trading posts, curio shops and attractions. In 1925 he opened trading posts in Gallup, New Mexico, and Estes Park, Colorado, which he operated during the St. Pete off-season. Later, in 1931, he opened a trading post in Boulder City, Nevada, where the Boulder Dam was under construction (attracting rare tourists during the 1930s Great Depression).

There he advertised himself as both an Indian trader and a photographer. Monroe reports he sold Navajo, Zuni, Hopi, and Seminole handcrafts while also photographing construction of the dam. Still later he opened Indian curio and tourist shops in Ft. Lauderdale, Palm Bay, and Kissimmee, Florida, and in Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine and Georgia.  Some of these he continued to operate until 1959.

Barnhill also operated an “Indian Trading Post” at the first St. Petersburg Municipal Pier (the “Million Dollar Pier”). On one occasion he enlisted Seminole Indians, including Chiefs Ben Tommy and Robert Osceola, to come to his Trading Post to perform “native dances and tribal rituals.”

Barnhill’s focus on Indian-associated business ventures even extended to his St. Pete photography studio. In 1933 the name of Barnhill’s studio was changed to “Barnhill’s Camera Shop and Indian Store.”

Before the introduction of Kodachrome transparency film in 1935, photographers experimented with various ways of coloring black and white film prints. Color pigments were applied to the black and white photo. Barnhill was the first to offer this service in the St. Petersburg area. Later he applied the same technique to black and white postcards, which he sold for five cents. His use of a special New York Albertype printing process further added to the refinement of his postcards.

Eventually he began hand-painting his own photos. In 1933 Barnhill entered six of his scenic Florida photographic images in the Second International Photographic Exhibition in Vienna, Austria. His photograph “When the Clouds Go Drifting By” was awarded a prize for the “technique shown and the fine pictorial work.”

“The subtle richness of Barnhill’s airbrushed-tinted photographs captured Florida’s distinctly clear, brisk colors,” Monroe observed. “At times his dashes of brushed on highlights approached the neon colors that might be seen at sunset … Barnhill created pictures that functioned … as windows through which to see the real Florida.”

E.G. Barnhill, (American, 1894-1987), Florida Sunset on Tampa Bay at St. Petersburg Fla., c. 1914
Gold toned gelatin silver glass plate with uranium dye, The Gary Monroe Family Collection.

According to Monroe, Barnhill’s traditional and hand-colored pictures on paper established him as one of Florida’s outstanding photographers during his era. However, Barnhill’s most notable contribution to photography is said to be the use of uranium rather than gold pigment, to replicate Curtis’s glass print process.

According to Julie A. Wilson, former Director of Marketing and Communications for the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, “He later sourced his supplies directly from Germany, before anyone understood the element’s radioactive potential. Falling somewhere between photography and vernacular art, these ‘glowing’ works combine ethereal beauty with Barnhill’s unique sense of showmanship.”

(The Museum of Fine Arts featured GLOW, an exhibit of Barnhill’s works, in 2019. “I believe the glass plates are the epitome of his work and hold a special place in Florida art,” Monroe told the Catalyst at the time. “And they are worthy in the national dialog of photography.”)

Barnhill wanted to use colors other than the gold wash used by Curtis for his glass images. He tried a number of pigments and finally discovered that uranium dyes would achieve the look he wanted. As Monroe recounts, Barnhill had gone to Germany to study lithography before settling in St. Pete. He also had an interest in minerology and may have become familiar with uranium while there. (In 1929 the St. Petersburg Times reported that Barnhill left the city for Germany to study new processes in color photography, and that he would also “make an extensive study of Hertzian waves and the science of analyzing measurements from [an] electric mineral calculator for locating minerals under ground.”)  Also, given his knowledge of Native Americans he may have known they used uranium to create paints for ceremonial decoration.

While there were many photographers who helped promote St. Petersburg in its formative years, Barnhill did so with a special sense of photographic knowledge and artistry. Both his glass images and colorized postcards have become special collectors’ imagery to many who appreciate our city’s unique history and sense of place.

Esmond G. Barnhill died in Gainesville, Florida in 1987, at the age of 93.

A version of this article was first published in the Northeast Journal.

Will Michaels is former director and trustee of the St. Petersburg Museum of History, and the author of The Making of St. Petersburg and the Hidden History of St. Petersburg.  He may be reached at wmichaels2222@gmail.com.