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Camera Work, An Illustrated Quarterly Magazine devoted to Photography and to the Activities of the Photo-Secession, Edited and Published by Alfred Stieglitz

Sale Information:

Christie's, New York

Sale 2279 The Miller-Plummer Collection of Photographs 8 October 2009 New York, Rockefeller Plaza

Price Realized (Set Currency)

* $80,500
* Price includes buyer's premium

Lot Description:

Camera Work, An Illustrated Quarterly Magazine devoted to Photography and to the Activities of the Photo-Secession

A complete set, including Numbers 1-49/50 (1903-1917), Special Steichen Supplement (April 1906) and Special Number(s) (August 1912) and (June 1913); dated January 22, 1922, inscribed 'To Litchfield from AS '291' and annotated 'If you ask a question - and the wisest in the world answer you - remember your question - If it be vital to yourself - will be but half answered - The remaining half you will have to furnish yourself - not in words - but what is actually within that thing - yourself. I asked a question in May 1914 - Today I know the meaning of Friends - To one seeking whole answers' by Stieglitz in pencil (on the flyleaf, Volume 47).

Plates throughout in photogravure, halftone, color halftone, collotype and letterpress of works by Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Karl F. Struss, George H. Seeley, Clarence H. White, Robert Demachy, Gertrude Käsebier, Heinrich Kuehn, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Anne W. Brigman, Baron Adolph DeMeyer and others; includes reproductions of works by artists exhibited at '291' such as Picasso, Cézanne, Matisse, Picabia and De Zayas; original grey paper wrappers.

Provenance:

From the artist; to Donald Litchfield, to Consuelo Kanaga; acquired 1980s

Stieglitz, Camera Work: A Pictorial Guide, Dover, 1978; Alfred Stieglitz: Camera Work: The Complete Illustrations 1903-1917, Taschen, 1997

Lot Notes

This complete set of Camera Work was inscribed by Stieglitz to 'Litchfield' and eventually came into the possession of the current owners via the photographer, Consuelo Kanaga, a close personal friend and whose own work is represented in the sale in the following two lots, 548 and 549.

In 1919, Kanaga married mining engineer Evans Davidson, but they separated within two years and Kanaga moved to New York to work as a photojournalist for the newspaper, New York American. Donald Litchfield, a colleague and with whom she was briefly romantically involved, introduced her to her mentor, Alfred Stieglitz.