VINTAGE PHOTOGRAPHY
Artists Links
| Alvin Langdon Coburn | Eva Watson-Schutze | Roman Vishniac |
| Peter Henry Emerson | Ralph Steiner | |
| F. Benedict Herzog | Alfred Steiglitz | |
| Guido Rey | Izaak Walton |
Coburn was one of the first - perhaps the first - to pursue consciously the possibilities of photography as a tool for exploring abstract form. Clouds were a particularly good subject for an artist like Coburn who sought the broad poetic view of things. Granted that no two clouds are the same; nevertheless, their meanings were sufficiently imprecise and generalized to allow Coburn to use them as abstract visual elements. Coburn used the skies as children and poets used them, and as Leonardo used stained old walls: as an analog model of imaginary worlds.
Image:
Metropolitan
Tower
c. 1990's
Photogravure
8 x 3-3/4 inches
Peter
Henry Emerson
1856
- 1936
Emerson’s
best
photographs concerned the lives and land of the farmers and fishermen
of East Anglia; the pictures were objective, richly informative, visually
satisfying, and often moving. Emerson must have been deeply fascinated
by his subjects and sincerely interested in the quality of their lives.
He also loved photography, and learned almost to match the magically opalescent
image on the ground-glass in his subtle, exquisite platinum prints.
Image:
The Ferry Boat Inn, Tottenham - Plate XXVIII
c. 1880's
Photogravure
5-1/4 x 8 inches
F.
Benedict Herzog
c.
1859 - 1912 American
In the fifty numbers of Camera Work, published between the years of 1903 and 1917, there appeared some of the finest examples of photography and modernist art. Camera Work chronicled the introduction of modern European art into America. Herzog's introduction to this forum was in the 12th issue in 1905 and the 17th issue in 1907.
Image:
The Tale of Isolde
1905
Photogravure CW 12:57
8 x 7-1/2 inches
Klein was a self-exiled American living in France. Klein's photographs for Vogue Magazine in the 50's and 60's are those which will be most readily categorized as "inside fashion." Klein's photograph of a smoking woman (a hat shot for French Vogue), which has now become one of fashion photography's most widely reproduced icons originally perturbed the editors because the cigarette was not in a holder. Klein's inventive photographic style has had a great influence on fashion photographers of today.
Image:
Selwyn, 42nd Street, New York
1955
Gelatin Silver Print, printed later
16 x 20 inches
In the fifty numbers of Camera Work, published between the years of 1903 and 1917, there appeared some of the finest examples of photography and modernist art. Camera work chronicled the introduction of modern European art into America. Rey’s introduction to Camera Work was in issue number 24.
Image:
The Letter
1908
Photogravure
8-1/4 x 6 inches
