Alvin Langdon Coburn
Encyclopedia
Pictorialism
Pictorialism is the name given to a photographic movement in vogue from around 1885 following the widespread introduction of the dry-plate process. It reached its height in the early years of the 20th century, and declined rapidly after 1914 after the widespread emergence of Modernism...
. He became the first major photographer to emphasize the visual potential of elevated viewpoints and later made some of the first completely abstract photographs.
Childhood (1882-1899)
In 1890 the family visited his maternal uncles in Los Angeles, and they gave him a 4 x 5 Kodak camera. He immediately fell in love with the camera, and within a few years he had developed a remarkable talent for both visual composition and technical proficiency in the darkroom
Darkroom
A darkroom is a room that can be made completely dark to allow the processing of light sensitive photographic materials, including photographic film and photographic paper. Darkrooms have been created and used since the inception of photography in the early 19th century...
. When he was sixteen years old, in 1898, he met his cousin F. Holland Day
F. Holland Day
Fred Holland Day was an American photographer and publisher. He was the first in the U.S.A. to advocate that photography should be considered a fine art.-Life:...
, who was already an internationally known photographer with considerable influence. Day recognized Coburn’s talent and both mentored him and encouraged him to take up photography as a career.
At the end of 1899 his mother and he moved to London, where they met up with Day. Day had been invited by the Royal Photographic Society
Royal Photographic Society
The Royal Photographic Society is the world's oldest national photographic society. It was founded in London, United Kingdom in 1853 as The Photographic Society of London with the objective of promoting the Art and Science of Photography...
to select prints from the best American photographers for an exhibition in London. He brought more than a hundred photographs with him, including nine by Coburn – who at this time was only 17 years old. With the help of his cousin Coburn’s career took a giant first step.
Rise to fame (1900-1905)
Coburn’s prints at the Royal Photographic Society attracted the attention of another important photographer, Frederick H. EvansFrederick H. Evans
Frederick H. Evans was a noted British photographer, primarily of architectural subjects. He is best known for his images of English and French cathedrals. Evans began his career as a bookseller, but retired from that to become a full-time photographer in 1898, when he adopted the platinotype...
. Evans was one of the founders of the Linked Ring, an association of artistic photographers which was considered at that time to be the highest authority for photographic aesthetics. In the summer of 1900 Coburn was invited to exhibit with them, which elevated him to the ranks of some of the most elite photographers of the day.
In 1901 Coburn lived in Paris for a few months so he could study with photographer Edward Steichen
Edward Steichen
Edward J. Steichen was an American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. He was the most frequently featured photographer in Alfred Stieglitz' groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its run from 1903 to 1917. Steichen also contributed the logo design and a custom typeface...
and Robert Demachy
Robert Demachy
Robert Demachy was a prominent French Pictorial photographer of the late 19th and early 20th century. He is best known for his intensely manipulated prints that display a distinct painterly quality.-Early years :...
. He and his mother then toured France, Switzerland and Germany for the remainder of the year.
When they returned to America in 1902, Coburn began studying with famed photographer Gertrude Kasebier
Gertrude Käsebier
Gertrude Käsebier was one of the most influential American photographers of the early 20th century. She was known for her evocative images of motherhood, her powerful portraits of Native Americans and her promotion of photography as a career for women.-Early life :Käsebier was born Gertrude...
in New York. He opened a photography studio on Fifth Avenue but spent much of his time that year studying with leading Arthur Wesley Dow
Arthur Wesley Dow
Arthur Wesley Dow was an American painter, printmaker, photographer, and influential arts educator....
at his School of Art in Massachusetts. At the same time, his mother continued to promote her son whenever she could. Stieglitz once told an interviewer, "Fannie Coburn devoted much energy trying to convince both Day and me that Alvin was a greater photographer than Steichen."
The following year Coburn was elected as an Associate of the Linked Ring, making him one of the youngest members of that group and one of only a few Americans to be so honored. In May he was given his first one-man show at the Camera Club of New York, and in July Stieglitz published one of his gravures in Camera Work
Camera Work
Camera Work was a quarterly photographic journal published by Alfred Stieglitz from 1903 to 1917. It is known for its many high-quality photogravures by some of the most important photographers in the world and its editorial purpose to establish photography as a fine art...
, No. 3.
In 1904 Coburn returned to London with a commission from The Metropolitan Magazine to photograph England’s leading artists and writers, including G.K. Chesterton, George Meredith
George Meredith
George Meredith, OM was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era.- Life :Meredith was born in Portsmouth, England, a son and grandson of naval outfitters. His mother died when he was five. At the age of 14 he was sent to a Moravian School in Neuwied, Germany, where he remained for two...
, and H.G. Wells. During this trip he visited renowned pictorialist J. Craig Annan in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
and made studies of motifs photographed by pioneering photographers Hill
David Octavius Hill
The Scottish painter and arts activist David Octavius Hill collaborated with the engineer and photographer Robert Adamson between 1843 and 1847 to pioneer many aspects of photography in Scotland.-Early life:...
and Adamson
Robert Adamson (photographer)
Robert Adamson, was a Scottish pioneer photographer.Adamson was born in St. Andrews, he was hired in 1843 by David Octavius Hill , a painter of romantic Scottish landscapes. He was commissioned to make a group portrait of the 470 clergymen who founded the Free Church of Scotland. Hill required...
. Six more of his images were published in Camera Work
Camera Work
Camera Work was a quarterly photographic journal published by Alfred Stieglitz from 1903 to 1917. It is known for its many high-quality photogravures by some of the most important photographers in the world and its editorial purpose to establish photography as a fine art...
, No. 6 (April, 1904). In 1905 he photgraphed American artist Leon Dabo
Leon Dabo
Leon Dabo was an American tonalist landscape artist best known for his paintings of New York, particularly the Hudson Valley. His paintings were known for their feeling of spaciousness, with large areas of the canvas that had little but land, sea, or clouds...
.
Coburn remained in London throughout 1905 and much of 1906, taking both portraits and landscapes around England. He photographed Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
for The Century magazine and returned to Edinburgh for a series he intended to be visualizations of Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
’s Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes.
Symbolist period (1906-1912)
The years 1906-07 were some of the most prolific and important for Coburn. He began 1906 by having one-man shows at the Royal Photographic SocietyRoyal Photographic Society
The Royal Photographic Society is the world's oldest national photographic society. It was founded in London, United Kingdom in 1853 as The Photographic Society of London with the objective of promoting the Art and Science of Photography...
(accompanied by a catalog with a preface by George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
) and at the Liverpool Amateur Photographic Association. In July five more gravures were published in Camera Work (No. 15). At the same time he began to study photogravure printing at the London County Council School of Photo-Engraving. It was during this time that Coburn made one of his most famous portraits, that of George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
posing nude as Rodin’s The Thinker
The Thinker
The Thinker is a bronze and marble sculpture by Auguste Rodin, whose first cast, of 1902, is now in the Musée Rodin in Paris; there are some twenty other original castings as well as various other versions, studies, and posthumous castings. It depicts a man in sober meditation battling with a...
.
In the summer he cruised round the Mediterranean and traveled to Paris, Rome and Venice in the fall while working on frontispieces for an American edition of Henry James’ novels. While in Paris he sees Steichen’s Autochrome color prints and learns the process from him.
By 1907 Coburn was so well established in his career that Shaw called him "the greatest photographer in the world," although he was only 24 years old at the time. He continued his success by having a one-man show at Stieglitz’s prestigious Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession in New York and by organizing an international exhibition of photography at the New English Art Galleries in London. At the request of American art collector Charles Lang Freer, Coburn briefly returned to the U.S. so he could photograph Freer’s large collection of oriental art and Whistler prints. Coburn became captivated with the “exotic” style of the oriental artists, and it began to have an influence in both his thinking and his photography.
In January, 1908, twelve more of Coburn’s photographs were published in Camera Work (No. 21). Oddly, in the same issue there was an anonymous article that leveled some harsh words at him:
- "Coburn has been a favored child throughout his career… No other photographer has been so extensively exploited nor so generally eulogized. He enjoys it all; is amused at the conflicting opinions about him and his work, and, like all strong individuals, is conscious that he knows best what he wants and what he is driving at. Being talked about is his only recreation."
The author was probably Stieglitz, who sometimes delighted in both promoting and castigating a photographer, especially if he felt the person was becoming too conceited. The criticism did not seem to have a long-term affect on their relationship, as both continued to be close colleagues for many years.
In the spring Coburn had another one-man show, this time at the Goupil Galleries in New York. Soon after he wrote to Stieglitz, "Printing almost entirely in gray now... think it a reaction from the autochomes…" In the summer he visited Dublin, where he made portraits of W.B. Yeats and George Moore
George Moore (novelist)
George Augustus Moore was an Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist. Moore came from a Roman Catholic landed family who lived at Moore Hall in Carra, County Mayo. He originally wanted to be a painter, and studied art in Paris during the 1870s...
. He continued his travels that year with trips to Bavaria and Holland.
The next year Stieglitz gave Coburn his second one-man exhibition at his gallery, which by that time had come to be known only as "291". Another sign of Coburn’s prominence at that time was that Stieglitz had only given two shows to one other photographer – Edward Steichen. Back in London, Coburn bought a new home with a large studio area where he set up two printing presses. He proceeded to use the skills he’d learned at the County Council School to publish a book of his own photographs called London.
Coburn returned to America in 1910, exhibiting 26 prints at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Albright-Knox Art Gallery
The Albright-Knox Art Gallery is an art museum located in Delaware Park in Buffalo, New York. The gallery is a major showplace for modern art and contemporary art. It is located directly across the street from Buffalo State College.-History:...
in Buffalo, New York. He began traveling extensively in the U.S. for the next year, going to Arizona to photograph the Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the United States in the state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park, the 15th national park in the United States...
and to California to take photos in Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park is a United States National Park spanning eastern portions of Tuolumne, Mariposa and Madera counties in east central California, United States. The park covers an area of and reaches across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain chain...
. He came back to New York in 1912 and took a series of new photos which he published in his book New York. It was during this period that he made some of his most famous photographs from elevated viewpoints, including his best known image The Octopus.
While in New York he met and married Edith Wightman Clement of Boston on October 11, 1912. In November Coburn and his wife returned to England, and after twenty-three trans-Atlantic crosses he never again returned to the United States.
Explorations (1913-23)
Coburn continued to build his fame by publishing what would become his most famous book, Men of Mark, in 1913. The book featured 33 gravure prints of important European and American authors, artists and statesmen, including Henri MatisseHenri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
, Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
, Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin
François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
, Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
and Yeats. In the preface to the book, he says:
- "To make satisfactory photographs of persons it is necessary for me to like them, to admire them, or at least to be interested in them. It is rather curious and difficult to exactly explain, but if I dislike my subject it is sure to come out in the resulting portrait . I had thought of using 'Men of Genius' as the title for this book, but Arnold BennettArnold Bennett- Early life :Bennett was born in a modest house in Hanley in the Potteries district of Staffordshire. Hanley is one of a conurbation of six towns which joined together at the beginning of the twentieth century as Stoke-on-Trent. Enoch Bennett, his father, qualified as a solicitor in 1876, and the...
objected seriously, saying, very modestly, that he did not consider himself a man of genius, but merely a working author, and absolutely refusing to join the throng unless I changed it, so I told him that if he would give me a better one I would use it. 'Men of Mark' is his alternative."
In 1915 Coburn organized the exhibition "Old Masters of Photography", shown at the Royal Photographic Society in London and at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in the U.S. The show included many historical prints from Coburn’s own collection.
The following year two pivotal events occurred in his life. He met George Davison, a fellow photographer and a philanthropist who was involved in Theosophy
Theosophy
Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...
and Freemasonry
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
. This started him on a path of studying mysticism
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
, metaphysical
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
ideals and Druidism. Eventually he would devote most of his life to these studies, foregoing photography as his primary interest.
He met Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
, who introduced him to the short-lived Vorticism
Vorticism
Vorticism, an offshoot of Cubism, was a short-lived modernist movement in British art and poetry of the early 20th century. It was based in London but international in make-up and ambition.-Origins:...
movement in Britain. These new visual aesthetics intrigued Coburn and, provoked by his growing spiritual quest, he began to re-examine his photographic style. He responded by making a bold and distinctive portrait of Pound, showing three over-lapping images of differing sizes. Within a brief period he moved from this semi-representative image to a series of abstract images that are among the first completely non-representative photographs ever made.
To make these images Coburn invented a kaleidoscope
Kaleidoscope
A kaleidoscope is a circle of mirrors containing loose, colored objects such as beads or pebbles and bits of glass. As the viewer looks into one end, light entering the other end creates a colorful pattern, due to the reflection off the mirrors...
-like instrument with three mirrors clamped together, which when fitted over the lens of the camera would reflect and fracture the image. Pound called this instrument a "Vortoscope" and the resulting photographs "Vortographs". He made only about 18 different Vortographs, taken over a period of just one month, yet they remain among the most striking images in early 20th century photography.
In 1917 he had a show of Vortographs and paintings at the Camera Club in London. He had recently started painting, in what Ezra Pound called Post-Impressionist style, and the combination of 'second-rate' paintings along with his highly unusual photographs received mixed reviews. Stieglitz in particular did not like the change in Coburn’s imagery, and he rejected several prints for a show he was putting together.
From 1919 to 1921 Coburn became increasingly involved with the Freemasons, achieving the title of Royal Arch Mason. He also joined the Societas Rosicruciana
Societas Rosicruciana
The Societas Rosicruciana is a Rosicrucian order which limits its membership to Christian Master Masons. The order was founded in Scotland, but now exists in England, Scotland, Canada, France, Portugal, Romania, Ireland and the United States...
and delved further into metaphysical studies.
In 1922 Coburn briefly returned to his roots when he published More Men of Mark, a second book of portraits he had taken more than ten years earlier. This volume included previously unpublished photographs that included Pound, Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
, Frank Harris
Frank Harris
Frank Harris was a Irish-born, naturalized-American author, editor, journalist and publisher, who was friendly with many well-known figures of his day...
, Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
, Israel Zangwill
Israel Zangwill
Israel Zangwill was a British humorist and writer.-Biography:Zangwill was born in London on January 21, 1864 in a family of Jewish immigrants from Czarist Russia, to Moses Zangwill from what is now Latvia and Ellen Hannah Marks Zangwill from what is now Poland. He dedicated his life to championing...
and Edmund Dulac
Edmund Dulac
Edmund Dulac was a French book illustrator.-Early life and career:Born in Toulouse, France, he began his career by studying law at the University of Toulouse. He also studied art, switching to it full time after he became bored with law, and having won prizes at the Ecole des Beaux Arts...
.
Spiritual devotion (1923-30)
In 1923 Coburn met a man who would become a major influence on him for the rest of his life. The man was the leader of the Universal Order, a comparative religious group that grew out of the Order of Ancient Wisdom, and which under the name Hermetic Truth Society organized public lectures and produced the quarterly Shrine of Wisdom magazine. The identity of the man - described as being great and good in every way - was known to Coburn, but it has been kept from anyone outside of the Order due to the Society’s strict doctrine of anonymity. There was something about him, however, that struck a chord with Coburn, and "Coburn’s solidity as a citizen and the falling-away of all mundane ambition thereafter was due to his direct influence."Throughout the 1920s and 30s Coburn became fully committed to the beliefs of the Universal Order, which are described in The Shrine of Wisdom magazine as being devoted to "Synthetic Philosophy, Religion and Mysticism". His deep interest in mysticism, and especially freemasonry, was to occupy the greatest part of the remainder of his life. Coburn did much research into the history of freemasonry, as well as on aspects of the occult and mysticism. He presented numerous lectures based on his findings to Masonic gatherings, travelling extensively throughout England and Wales. He also took a particular interest in the ceremonial rituals and rites performed, and in their origins and symbolism.
In 1927 Coburn was made an honorary Ovate of the Welsh Gorsedd
Gorsedd
A gorsedd plural gorseddau, is a community or coming together of modern-day bards. The word is of Welsh origin, meaning "throne". It is occasionally spelled gorsedh , or goursez in Brittany....
, or Council of Druids, and he took the Welsh name "Maby-y-Trioedd" (Son of the Triads).
In 1928 his mother died. She had been a major influence on him for much of his life, and her passing was yet one more sign that his new devotion to religious interests was the right course for him.
Later life (1931-1966)
A year later he wrote his last letter to Stieglitz, and from then on he made only a few new photographs. Ironically, just when he was making an almost complete break from photography Coburn was elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society
Royal Photographic Society
The Royal Photographic Society is the world's oldest national photographic society. It was founded in London, United Kingdom in 1853 as The Photographic Society of London with the objective of promoting the Art and Science of Photography...
.
After living in England for more than twenty years, Coburn finally became a British subject in 1932.
In 1945 he moved from his house in Harlech
Harlech
Harlech is a town and seaside resort in Gwynedd, within the historical boundaries of Merionethshire in northwest Wales. Lying on Tremadog Bay and within the Snowdonia National Park, it has a population of 1,952, of whom 59% speak Welsh...
, North Wales
North Wales
North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...
to Rhos-on-Sea
Rhos-on-Sea
Rhos-on-Sea also known as Llandrillo-yn-Rhos in Welsh, or Rhos or Llandrillo , is a seaside resort in Conwy County Borough, Wales. The population was 7,110 in 2001. It is a mile to the north but effectively a suburb of Colwyn Bay, on the coast of North Wales...
, Colwyn Bay
Colwyn Bay
- Demography :Prior to local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974 Colwyn Bay was a municipal borough with a population of c.25,000, but in 1974 this designation disappeared leaving five separate parishes, known as communities in Wales, of which the one bearing the name Colwyn Bay encompassed...
, on the north coast of Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. He lived there the rest of his life.
His wife Edith died on October 11, 1957, their forty-fifth wedding anniversary.
Coburn died in his home in North Wales on November 23, 1966.
Further reading
- Alvin Langdon Coburn, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Photographer, An Autobiography, Dover Publications, 1978, ISBN 0-486-23685-4
External links
- The official National Media Museum print website containing many Alvin Langdon Coburn prints
- National Portrait Gallery - works by Coburn
- Alvin Langdon Coburn Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at AustinUniversity of Texas at AustinThe University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...