Samuel Herman Gottscho was an American architectural, landscape, and nature photographer.

Samuel Gottscho was born in Brooklyn, New York. He acquired his first camera in 1896 and took his first photograph at Coney Island

Coney Island

Coney Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill....

. From 1896 to 1920 he photographed part-time, specializing in houses and gardens, as he particularly enjoyed nature, rural life, and landscapes.

After attending several architectural photograph exhibitions, Gottscho decided to perfect and improve his own work and sought out several architects and landscape architects. After twenty-three years as a traveling lace and fabric salesman, Gottscho became a professional commercial photographer at the age of 50. His son-in-law William Schleisner joined Gottscho in his business in 1935. During this time his photographs appeared in and on the covers of American Architect and Architecture, Architectural Record

Architectural Record

Architectural Record is an American monthly magazine dedicated to architecture and interior design, published by McGraw-Hill Construction in New York City. It is over 110 years old...

. His portraits and architectural photography regularly appeared in articles in the New York Times. His photographs of private homes in the New York and Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

 suburbs often appeared in home decoration magazines. From the early 1940s to the late 1960s, he was a regular contributor to the Times of illustrated articles on wildflowers.

Gottscho believed he created some of his best work at the age of 70. In 1967, his botanical work won him the New York Botanical Garden

New York Botanical Garden

- See also :* Education in New York City* List of botanical gardens in the United States* List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City- External links :* official website** blog*...

's Distinguished Service Medal. He died in Jamaica, Queens, New York.

Approximately 29,000 of his images are held in the Gottscho-Schleisner collection at the U. S. Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

. Additionally, over 40,000 are held by the Museum of the City of New York

Museum of the City of New York

The Museum of the City of New York is an art gallery and history museum founded in 1923 to present the history of New York City, USA and its people...

, where an exhibition of his work titled "The Mythic City: Photographs of New York by Samuel H. Gottscho, 1925-1940," opened in November 2005. Photographs of the exhibition can be seen here http://www.pureandapplied.com/exhibitions/6/index.html. A third major archive of his work is held by Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library

Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library

The Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library is one of twenty-five libraries in the Columbia University Library System and is located in Avery Hall on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University in the City of New York. It is the largest architecture library in the world...

 at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

.

Gottscho's Publications

• Manhattan 1933
• A pocket guide to wildflowers: How to identify and enjoy them 1951
• Architectural and Decorative Features of St. Bartholomew's Church in the City of New York 1941
• A portfolio of views of the New York World's Fair of 1939 1939
• Wild-Flower Bounty from a L.I. Bog by SAMUEL H. GOTTSCHO. New York Times: Jul 31, 1966
• MAY GARDENS by Samuel H. Gottscho. New York Times: May 4, 1941