Lutterodt family

Lutterodt family, a dynasty of photographers rooted in Accra (Gold Coast, now Ghana) but working itinerantly along the West African littoral from at least 1870. Born c.1850, Gerhardt Lutterodt, son of the notable mixed-race Dane-Accra family, was probably the first photographer-member. He toured port towns between Freetown and Duala by steamship, eventually emerging as an influential propagator of photographic technologies; he is still remembered in Accra and Lome by descendants of studios opened a century ago. Lutterodt descendants further expanded his trade: William, probably a cousin, was advertising studios in the bustling entrepôts of Cape Coast and Elmina by 1880. A nephew, Frederick (1871-1937), had opened Duala Studio in Accra by 1889; Gerhardt's son Erick (1884-1959) had established the Accra studio in the same neighbourhood by 1904, while a Fernando Po family studio ran contemporaneously. Erick and Frederick prospered with a large urban clientele, and also recorded expeditions for the British and German colonial governments travelling through the Gold Coast, Togo, and Cameroon hinterlands. Lutterodt studios in Accra, particularly, expanded and multiplied until at least 1950. Collectively, their images documented the burgeoning city landscape, political events and personages, and cultural ceremonies, and testify to an expansion of visual documentation for private and public purposes.

— Erin Haney