Paul Haviland, while working in New York as a representative for his father’s porcelain factory, explored the arts. His interest in writing and photography eventually led him to the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, where Alfred Stieglitz and his circle of photographers strove to have the medium recognized as a fine art. In 1910 Haviland was made associate editor of Stieglitz’s publication Camera Work.

Haviland’s Portrait of a Man [SAAM, 1994.91.65], made about the same time he met Stieglitz (ca. 1908), is an impressionistic study rather than a conventional likeness. Although Haviland continued making portraits upon returning to France after World war I, they lacked the engaging inventiveness of his work in New York. [quoted from Smithsonian American Art Museum : SAAM]