Helen Gatch

[3] Biographer Roger Hull wrote that Gatch was once a central figure in Pacific Coast pictorial photography, but that she was "an entirely displaced person in the standard histories of the medium.

[4] According to archivist Sharon Howe, "Although she did not construct stage sets for her photographs as other pictorialists did, Gatch used composition, costuming, and titles to pictorialize her subjects and to produce Dutch genre images... Gatch used prominent Salem homes and friends as sets and models for her pictorial photography.

Her prints, shown nationally between 1895 and 1905, were published in international press, as well as locally in Salem and Portland.

[3] In 1902, Camera Craft reviewed a Los Angeles exhibition, writing, "Miss Gatch was represented by several new and striking prints.

[1] Gatch won honorable mention in a 1905 Kodak competition, and "made her mark at the local, regional, and national levels with winning contest entries and acceptance of her work into salons at San Francisco and Philadelphia".