(PHOTOGRAPHY.) Group of cabinet card portraits by James Conway Farley. 9 photographs on original Jefferson Gallery mounts, each about 6½ x 4¼ inches; minimal to minor wear. Richmond, VA, circa 1895-1906
James Conway Farley (1855-after 1910) of Richmond, VA has been called "the first prominent Black photographer in the United States" (Encyclopedia of African American Business, page 296). After many years at other studios, he opened his own Jefferson Fine Art Gallery in 1895 or 1896. According to the Richmond directories and newspapers, the Jefferson studio was at 523 East Broad Street through 1906. Farley worked at 627 East Broad in 1907 and 1908. He appeared as a photographer in Jersey City, NJ in the 1910 census before disappearing from the historical record.
These photographs are on a variety of Jefferson Gallery mounts from the 523 Broad address. One of them features an unidentified Black sitter with gloves in his jacket pocket and a handlebar moustache. The other 8 are apparently of white sitters, 2 men and 6 women. 2 of them are identified: a young woman named Virginia Ellen "Virgie" West (1888-1965) of Beaver Dam, VA, who has signed and inscribed "presented to Geo Arthur West, Beaver Dam"; and Hanover County farmer Charles Sanford Cocke (1840-1913), whose clipped death notice is affixed to the verso.
