St. Louis, MO—After more than 60 years of providing family portrait photography, CPI Corp. announced that as of April 5 all of its U.S. portrait studios were closed. “We appreciate your patronage and allowing us to capture your precious memories,” the company stated on their website. “We are attempting to fulfill as many customer orders as possible.”
For those who had a recent session, CPI said those portraits might be available at a local Sears, PictureMe or Kiddie Kandids portrait studio. CPI operated more than 2,000 U.S. portrait studios in Walmart and Sears stores, which abruptly closed, leaving some laid-off workers scrambling without pay to make good on customers’ orders, according to the AP. CPI revealed in mid-March that it owed $98.5 million and had warned that failing to buy more time from lenders could force it to liquidate.
