Bonnie and Roger Hull collection on Myra Albert Wiggins

Myra Albert Wiggins (1869-1956) was a successful photographer and painter who grew up in Salem, Oregon and attended Willamette University and Mills College. She studied painting at the Art Students League in New York from 1891-1894. She continued as a painter and photographer in Salem as well as Seattle and Toppenish, Washington. In 1903 Alfred Stieglitz, one of the most important photographers of the time admitted her as a member of Photo-Secession. Photo-Secession was an opportunity for photographers to unite in the common cause of promoting photography as art. Wiggins additionally wrote articles for many magazines concerning photography and was featured in exhibitions throughout the United States including the National Gallery in Washington, D.C and the National Academy in New York.

Salem artist Bonnie Hull began her research on Myra Wiggins in 1973, with the intention of writing articles and creating an exhibition on Wiggins. Bonnie curated Myra Albert Wiggins, Pictorialist, Photo-Secessionist: An Exhibition of Photographs for the Willamette University Art Department in 1976. Roger Hull, Professor Emeritus of Art History at Willamette University, later wrote the article, "Myra Wiggins and Helen Gatch: Conflicts in American Pictorialism" concerning Wiggins' role in American pictorial photography. Roger curated two exhibitions of Wiggins's work at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art: Describing: The Still Life Paintings of Myra Albert Wiggins (2004) and Myra Albert Wiggins: A Photographer's Life (2015). The latter included photographs from the Hallie Ford Museum collection and archival materials from the Pacific Northwest Artists Archive.