Camera Work, No.18. An Illustrated Quarterly Magazine Devoted to Photography [FROM THE LIBRARY OF AGNES ERNST MEYER*]
New York: Alfred Stieglitz, 1907. First edition. Hardcover. Folio. 50pp. [16 pages including additional plates and publisher's ads]. Original grey paper wrappers with white lettering on the covers, specially mounted on grey cloth boards for Stieglitz. Dated April, 1907. Cover design by Eduard Steichen.
This is issue #18 of the seminal quarterly art photography publication edited and published by pioneering photographer Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946). It contains a total of 10 photographic plates by photographers George Davison (1854-1930), Sarah Choate Sears (1858–1935), and Chicago photographer William B. Dyer (1860-1931). Davison was a founding member of the Linked Ring photographic society, which is seen as the British counterpart of American Photo-Secession movement. Also included are various essays and articles on photography from a number of notable and historically important contributors to the field, including photographers and art critics, many of whom were members of or associated with the Photo-Secession.
Included here are 6 images by Davison; his famous landscape "The Onion Field" (1890), "In A Village Under the South Downs", "A Thames Locker", "Wyvenhoe on the Colne in Essex", "The Long Arm" and "Berkshire Teams and Teamsters". Sarah Coate Sears contributes the expressive portraits "Mrs. Julia Ward Howe" and "Mary". William B. Dyer contributes the nude studies "The Spider" and "L'Allegro". Each image is beautifully reproduced from the original photograph in b/w or sepia-toned photogravure, and printed on tissue paper.
Text content includes "Symbolism and Allegory" by art critic Charles H. Caffin (1854-1918), "Pictorial Photography" (reprinted from The Complete Photographer) by R. Child Bayley, a poem about photography by J.B. Kerfoot (1865-1927), "The Straight and Modified Print" by French pictorial photographer Robert Demachy (1859–1936), and an essay on Demachy's work with contributions from George Bernard Shaw as well as British photographers Frederick H. Evans (1853-1943), and Francis Meadow Sutcliffe (1853-1941). The final section of 13 unnumbered pages contain beautifully-printed period advertisements for photography-related businesses.
Binding with some minor rubbing, and light bumping to extremities. Spine sunned with light bumping and rubbing to the head and tail. Back cover bumped with creasing along the bottom. Interior with the pages between the initial list of Davison plates at the front and p.18 loosening from the book block but not fully detached. Plates all clean and vibrant overall with some having minor to light foxing, mostly in the margins. Binding and interior in very good- condition overall. vg-. Item #49994
* Agnes Ernst Meyer (1887-1970) was an American journalist, philanthropist, civil rights activist, and art patron. She was a close collaborator and friend of photographer Alfred Stieglitz, with whom she publishing the arts and literary magazine "291" (from 1915-916). She first encountered the work of photo-secession group, when she chanced upon Stieglitz's Gallery 291, while work as a reporter for the New York Sun newspaper. She was one of the first female journalists to work at the paper. Due to this fact Stieglitz often referred to her as the "Sun Girl". Along with Katharine Rhoades and Marion Beckett she was known as the one of "The Three Graces" of the Alfred Stieglitz artistic circle. She is well known for her political activism throughout her life on behalf many causes, including public education and racial equality in America.
Price: $2,500.00