Erik Overbey Photo Gallery
Erik Overbey (1882-1977), a native of Hafslo, Sogn, Norway, operated a photographic studio in Mobile from 1903 to 1958. During that time he chronicled the life of the city in thousands of ways. Overbey used an 8 x 10 camera until the late 1940s and a 5 x 7 thereafter. His work was straight and clean, and he probably thought of himself as a craftsman rather than an artist. Although he made thousands of portraits, he was in his element as an industrial photographer. Using form and mass, he composed to make the commonplace extraordinary. Perhaps in hopes of reprint business, Overbey purchased the negative collection of an earlier studio, W. A. Reed. As a result the Overbey Collection includes negatives dating back to the 1880s.
OVERBEY, ERIK (81-02-51, 81-03-48, 81-07-50, 81-03-49, 85-01-01, 85-02-02, 85-07-04,
85-08-05, 85-03-03, 09-07-51)
Within the larger collections of Erik Overbey are more than 45,000 portraits dating
from circa 1880 to the 1950s. Included are glass plates, nitrate negatives, and safety negatives.