PHOTOGRAPHS
Coburn, Alvin Langdon
U.S. / England (1882 - 1966)
The Canal in Rotterdam
1908
Photogravure
11 7/8 x 15 1/2 in. (30.2 x 39.4 cm) image size;12 3/4 x 16 in. (32.4 x 40.6 cm) sheet size
Monsen Study Collection of Photography, gift of Joseph and Elaine Monsen
FA 84.10
Keywords: Seascape; Transportation (boat); Photo-Secession

Coburn made his greatest contribution to photography between 1905 and 1912 known as his Symbolist years, when he employed a soft-focus lens to approximate human vision. In this image, he chooses an unusual perspective and focuses on the reflection of the boat, creating an image at once animated, textured, and mysterious.

American-born Coburn was introduced to photography by his cousin, the noted photographer F. Holland Day, in 1898. When Coburn was seventeen Day included nine of his images in a show organized for the Royal Photographic Society London. In 1901, Coburn opened a studio in New York City near Edward Steichen’s studio at 291 Fifth Avenue, which in 1905 became Alfred Stieglitz’s Photo-Secession Gallery. He was elected to the Photo-Secession group in 1902 and to the London-based Linked Ring in 1903. Thus, by the time he was twenty-one, he had become a member of the two most important international groups promoting the recognition of photography as art. After 1912, Coburn photographed only intermittently. He had become committed to the ideas of a group called the Universal Order, which included Rosicrucians, Masons, Druids, and men interested in Eastern religion. By 1932 Coburn had given his entire collection to the Royal Photographic Society and destroyed 15,000 negatives. He became a British subject and moved to North Wales where he remained until his death in 1966. -- Label copy for 150 Works of Art, October 1, 2005 to February 26, 2006.