Edith Wharton
By Zaida Ben-Yusuf
Platinum print, circa 1901
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

In 1921, author Edith Wharton -- renowned for her novels and short stories that examined upper-crust New York society -- became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Twenty years earlier, she had visited Ben-Yusuf’s studio to have her portrait made. In this intimate photograph, Wharton turns her wistful gaze to the camera, perhaps contemplating the fellow artist who records her image.