Constance Stuart Larrabee collection

Constance Stuart Larrabee (1914-2000) was born August 7, in Cornwall, England. The family moved to Cape Town, South Africa when she was three months old settling at a tin mine in Transvaal. In 1920 they moved to Pretoria where Constance spent most of her childhood. On her 10th birthday she was gifted a Kodak Box Brownie and her interest in photography began. When the family returned to England, she attended Regent Street Polytechnic and then apprenticed with the portrait photographer Yevonde Middleton. In 1935 she went to the Bavarian State Institute of Photography in Munich. While there she began working with the Rolleiflex camera, which she used throughout the rest of her career, and moved to a more straight forward unmanipulated approach to her black and white photography. Larrabee began her professional career back in South Africa documenting the indigenous tribes in their native costumes. She worked as the official photographer for the royal tour through the area. Her work led her to be South Africa’s first female war correspondent for Libertas magazine, between 1945 and 1955 she worked throughout Europe. In 1948 Larrabee moved from South Africa to America settling in Chestertown in 1949 after marrying Sterling Larrabee, who she met during her time as a war correspondent. While living in Chestertown she began her longstanding relationship with Washington College serving as chairwoman of Washington College Friends of the Arts and establishing the Constance Stuart Larrabee Arts Center. Sterling Larrabee died in 1975 and Constance passed away on July 27, 2000.