Royal Carlock Washington DC Hand Colored Photograph
royal hubert carlock (1899-1970) was born in Paris Crossing, Indiana. One of six children born to Benjamin and Ellen Carlock. After graduating from Indiana University, Carlock married Ethel Wohrer in 1917. He entered the US Army near the end of World War I, where he specialized in aerial photography as part of the Army Corps of Engineers. from the US and after the war ended, the couple moved to Washington DC in 1918 where their first daughter was born.
After his discharge from the army, Carlock got a job at a photography company called CO Buckingham who at the time was producing hand-painted photographs of major Washington, DC tourist attractions. This accounts for the obvious similarity in style between the Carlock and Buckingham hand-colored images.
Ethel Carlock died in 1920 during an influenza epidemic, leaving Carlock a widow with a 15-month-old baby.
Carlock was fascinated by the architecture and national treasures found in our nation’s capital. He focused his photographic and hand-coloring skills on subjects found in and around the Washington DC area. The only photographer in his company, his black-and-white photographs were hand-painted in oils and sold to the throngs of tourists visiting our nation’s capital during the post-World War I era.
In 1922, Carlock married his second wife, Emma Clarke. In that same year he also left Buckingham Studios employment and opened his own photography studio at 406 13th Street NW in Washington, DC. Carlock’s”snappy snap shop” specialized in the rapid development of tourist films along with the sale of his increasingly famous hand-colored photographs of Washington DC landmarks and monuments, including the White House, the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monuments, the U.S. Capital Building, and of course the colorful cherry blossoms of Washington.Working as a team, Carlock took the photographs and Emma, along with other colorists, tinted them by hand.
We have seen images of Carlock identified in three different ways:
• Signed matte photos “carlock” in the lower right corner below the image, with or without a title in the lower left.
• Unmatted and framed images with “carlock“is embossed in the lower left corner of the actual image.
• No marks on the image or mat, just a “carlockImage tag on reverse.
It has been reported by Jane Crandall that Royal Carlock was her uncle and that her parents worked for him at one point. She also reported that his mother, Julia Carlock, was one of Carlock’s colorists and would bring pictures home to color at night. Jane Crandall also reported that many of the signatures found on Carlock’s photographs were actually signed by his mother.
Royal Carlock kept his business going until the 1940s. Collector Myke Ellis has reported that Polk’s 1943 Washington DC address directory listed Royal Carlock working at 913 Pennsylvania Avenue. Even during the Depression years, when so many other photographers saw their businesses decline or go out of business, Carlock’s business flourished mainly due to the consistently high level of tourism and the large and growing number of people working for the U.S. government. USA
Although his photographs generally sold best at cherry blossom time, for several years Carlock also produced a Christmas card containing a hand-colored photo of Washington, DC. These are considered quite rare among collectors today.
As with all other early 20th century. hand-colored photographers, the advent of color film led to the decline of Carlock’s hand-colored photography business. The main emphasis of his business was on finishing photographs until 1957, when he retired from the photography business to dedicate his life to conservation.
In 1962, his 40-year marriage to Emma dissolved, and in 1964 he married Grace Diane Knapp.
With heart problems during the last years of his life, Royal Carlock died of a heart attack in 1970. His ashes were buried on a small island in a lagoon in the Isaac Walton League National Conservation Park near Gaithersburg, MD.
Carlock images are still relatively inexpensive and quite affordable. Their low price, good quality, and interesting theme will probably continue to make them collectible. The only limitation is that there are only about 10 different Washington DC scenes to collect. The next time you see an image of Washington DC in a store or show, take a closer look. It will probably be a royal carlock hand-colored photograph.
