London
G. K. Chesterton (author)
Alvin Langdon Coburn (photographer)
1914
22.5 x 16.0 cm
DA 684 C52 1914
American Pictorialist photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn was a founding member of the Photo-Secession, along with Alfred Stieglitz. Photo-Secession members advocated for photography’s status as a fine art, showing their photographs alongside European modern art at Stieglitz’s 291 Gallery in New York City and in the pages of the journal Camera Work, where photographs and paintings were reproduced side-by-side using photogravure. In 1912, Coburn emigrated to the United Kingdom and became involved with the Linked Ring, a British group of pictorialist photographers founded in 1892.
This privately-printed book includes a text by the British writer Gilbert Keith Chesterton and ten photographs by Coburn, printed by mezzogravure, a printing process similar to the photogravure. Photographs and text remain separate, with just one photograph per page featured in a series of photographic plates, making it clear that the photographs are not merely illustrations but works of art in their own right. This treatment of photographs is similar to the presentation in Camera Work and other fine art publications of the time.
A full scan of the book is available through the Internet Archive.