Edgerton Chester Garvin

"Ohio native and engineer who was active as a photographer between 1909 – 1947, Garvin graduated from George Washington University with a degree in engineering, and worked with the U.S. Engineering Department (now Corps of Engineers) in Augusta, Brunswick, Georgia, and Savannah, Georgia throughout the 1910s. Garvin is one of the few photographers who made a body of work with aesthetic intent in Savannah in the first decades of the 20th century. His work connects to Pictorialist photographers of the period, especially his landscapes which are often shot with soft focus in early morning light and mist. Garvin submitted his work to major photography publications of the day with some appearing in print in The Photo-Era, The American Journal of Photography. Garvin’s work would benefit from a larger examination in the future given its aesthetic qualities and value as a record of a changing south. His work is discussed in the context of early Southern fine art photography in the Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography (Routledge, 2005). He is represented by three works in the collection of the High Museum of Art, and by eleven works in the collection of the Georgia Historical Society. His work is also in the collection of the Augusta Historical Society. " Harry DeLorme, Director of Education and Senior Curator

Married to Frances Elizabeth McCoy on April 25, 1916 with no children. He has two sisters and a brother: Fanny Edgerton Garvin (1879-1933), Hugh McKee Garvin (1885-1930), and Christina Augusta Garvin (1886-1964).