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Artist or Maker: ALVIN LANGDON COBURN

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Description: Vortograph, 1917
gelatin silver print
image: 8 3/8 x 11in. (21.4 x 27.8cm.); paper: 10 x 12in. (25.2 x 30.3cm.)

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Provenance: This and the previous lot were given to the grandparents of the present owner by Coburn. The owner's grandfather, Leonard Arundale, met Coburn thorugh a mutual interest in photography and membership in the Freemasons. The owner's grandparents became close friends of Coburn and his wife Edith.

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Notes: THE PROPERTY OF A DESCENDANT OF LEONARD ARUNDALE, A CLOSE FRIEND OF ALVIN LANGDON COBURN

In 1916, Coburn published an essay in Photograms of the Year titled 'The Future of Pictorial Photography'. He argued vehemently against conventional representation and the limitation of photography to subject categories which could be easily classified. He proposed an exhibition of exclusively 'abstract' photographs.

In the same year, Coburn made a portrait of Wyndham Lewis, leader of the avant-garde English Vorticist movement, which borrowed from both Futurism and Cubism. At the end of 1916, he invented a kaleidoscope-like device consisting of three mirrors, which, placed between the lens and the subject, reflected and split the image. Ezra Pound christened the instrument the 'Vortescope' and the resulting images 'Vortographs'. In his introduction to Coburn's exhibition catalogue, Pound writes 'In vortography [Coburn] accepts the fundamental principles of vorticism, and those of vorticist painting in so far as they are applicable to the work of the camera...the Vorticist principle is that a painting is an expression by means of an arrangement of form and colour in the same way that a piece of music is an expression by means of an arrangement of sound...the medium of the vortographer is practically limited to form (shapes on a surface) and to light and shade; to the peculiar varieties in lightness and darkness which belong to the technique of the camera.' He exuberantly proclaims, 'THE CAMERA IS FREED FROM REALITY.' (Vortographs and Paintings by Alvin Langdon Coburn, The Camera Club, 1917)

No prints of this image are included in the major bequest of works by Coburn at the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester.

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.