Otho Barden: the Rock City Artist

OTHO BARDEN was an American artist who cut silhouettes during the summer season at the popular tourist attraction of Rock City at the top of Lookout Mountain, Georgia. He seems to have worked there for many years, probably from the opening of Rock City in 1932 until the early 1960s.

Which pronoun should I use?

Oddly, this is not such an easy question to answer. Having looked into it, I decided to refer to this artist as “he”. However, I did once receive a correspondence stating that Otho Barden was a woman, being the daughter of her great grandmother’s half-brother, and that she’d married a man called Lockhart.

This is a tricky one to solve. I don’t want to contradict a family member, yet all the adverts I’ve seen (like the one illustrated below) clearly refer to “Mr. Barden”.  I’m keeping an open mind, so if anybody can shed more light on this I’d be very grateful!

Cutting on Lookout Mountain and in department stores

It was claimed that from Lookout Mountain at Rock City you could see seven states. Sadly, this no longer seems possible (due to the effects of haze and air pollution) but this didn’t prevent tourists from flocking to the area. I believe they still do.

Although I’ve never seen a photograph of it, it’s likely that Barden operated from a silhouette booth, or shop of some kind, with many examples of his silhouettes displayed for visitors to see.

During the winter months, when Rock City closed, he set up a series of department store appearances all over the US which he advertised in the local press. These advertisements indicate that his target market was to create silhouettes of your children. However, my own collection of his work shows that he also created many silhouettes of couples, which were generally mounted face to face on separate cards.

Such department-store appearances were a common way for silhouette artists to work, both in the US and in the UK during the early twentieth century. 

Otho’s silhouettes & working method

His silhouettes are stylised and quite large, usually bearing a “Rock City” stamp, and mounted on 7″x 5″ cards. They sometimes have the shoulders turned towards the viewer, like the set of three below, and include playful, inventive cuts to indicate collars and other clothing details.

Looking at the silhouettes I can imagine him working relatively slowly (for a silhouettist) and methodically, taking care over the various internal cuts. For some reason I imagine him as having quite large hands! I’ve always found that silhouettes cut at this scale usually take slightly longer to cut.

Barden’s various internal cuts, used to indicate details of clothing and hair, are all cut in from the outside of the paper. This process is known as slash cutting. I’ve never seen an example of him using point work, where such lines are created by stabbing the paper with the point of the scissors.

At his best his silhouettes are full of character with a lively cutting style. However, some of his silhouettes (especially those of men for some reason) have a slightly generic feeling about them. The backs of his heads in particular are often cut to a formulaic shape.

Seascapes and other scenes

As well as his portraits, which form the bulk of his work, Barden also occasionally cut seascapes and other scenes. These are mounted onto the same cards with the Rock City stamp on the back. I imagine he cut these during quieter moments at the studio and made them available for purchase wherever he was working.

These scenes are less easy to find, and are often hand-signed by the artist (which the portraits never are). The cutting to the right shows a large sailing ship, proceeding with all canvas unfurled, and a pair of white seagulls hollow-cut from white in the foreground. You can see the artist’s entry cut from the left to create these gulls.

Further information about Otho Barden

• The 1940 US census lists Otho L. Barden as a man, age 37, living in Atlanta City, GA with his wife Mamie and mother-in-law Mattie. He was cutting silhouettes at least until 1960.
• I’m grateful to Carol White (below) for finding an article stating that Otho Barden worked at the Century of Progress Exhibition. This exhibition in Chicago was open between May and November in 1933 and 1934. It’s therefore possible that Barden began cutting silhouettes at Rock City around 1935, after this exhibtion.

Searching for Otho Barden will reveal a number of his silhouettes for sale on various auction sites. However, they are usually undated.