Alvin Langdon Coburn, the Great War, and the "World's First Abstract Photographs"

Date
Thursday, May 5, 2022, 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Friend Center 101 and Zoom - Open to all ∙ Registration required

Speaker

Anne McCauley
Princeton University

Details

abstract picture

Alvin Langdon Coburn, Vortograph, 1916, gelatin silver print, George Eastman House. 

Cosponsor(s): Princeton University Art Museum and Department of Art & Archaeology

Abstract

In February 1917, the American photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn staged a modest show of eighteen photographs and thirteen watercolors at the London Camera Club. By looking at the context of this exhibition of what his friend Ezra Pound dubbed "Vortographs," this lecture will probe why Coburn sought to free his medium from reality (as he wrote) at this critical historical moment.