Lane, Gilman

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Gilman Lane Soundex Code L500

Gilman Lane photographed buildings in the Chicago area including many of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work. Upon his death in 1961, Lane donated his collection of over 700 photographs to the Oak Park Public Library. According to William Jerousek, Librarian at the Oak Park Public Library, Lane was an industrial arts teacher at the Oak Park-River Forest High School from 1923 to 1957.

Lane's interest in photograph proceeded his teaching career in Oak Park Illinois. In the June, 1918 issue of American Photography, he wrote lengthy technical article entitled "A Daylight Enlarger to be used in any Lighted Room". It reads like an article written by one professional photographer to another. This leads one to wonder if he may have tried his hand as a professional photographer, but opted for the steady paycheck as a teacher, never giving up his first love of photography.

Whether a one-time professional, part time freelance, or "amateur", the results were anything but amateur. He left an early record of over 150 Wright buildings. In the seminal Biography of Wright's Work by Henry-Russell Hitchcock, The Nature of Materials, Hitchcock credits Henry Fuermann and Sons, and "another important group of photographs taken by Gilman Lane... who has been photographing Wright's work for many years, and who has taken many new photographs particularly for this book."