Clara Sipprell: Pictorial Photographer

Sipprell (1885-1975) had an inspiration while working in her brother's Buffalo, N.Y., photo studio in the early 1900s. As she glanced at a chair near a window, ``Something happened. I saw it . . . I had an ache of realization and then began my consciousness of light. . . . '' She went on to a photography career that spanned 70 years. Among her portrait sitters were Eleanor Roosevelt, Robert Frost and Alfred Steiglitz, though her range included landscapes, still lifes and nudes. Soft, glowing light and romantic imagery suffuse her work; her artistic mission was ``an unswerving faithfulness to the eternal truths.'' Released in conjunction with a traveling exhibition, the book includes some 100 photos and a pedestrian biography by an exhibitions director. And as gathered here, the pictures today seem neither innovative nor stylistically daring--nor do they suggest artistic evolution. (Sept.)