I’ll admit to never having stepped foot on any Hawaiian island, but I did “drive” a few roads in Honolulu recently thanks to Google’s Street View feature, all for the sake of checking out the topography near Maunalua Park, its proximity to Fort Shafter; the island’s oldest military base nearby, and the more distant city of Honolulu itself, an approximate 11 minute trip according to its algorithmic brain trust.

My reasoning for this is the newest addition to this site, an album of gorgeous gum bichromate photographs circa 1900-1910 I’m calling Hawaiian Landscape | Japanese Garden Album, possibly taken by a very gifted amateur photographer who called senior Army headquarters in Honolulu home. What made me pursue this research path?  Since no attribution or even titles to the photographs exist in the album, I could only rely on the one clue left in it: a single photographic support stamped “Official Business” evidently used as a mailing envelope.

On the back of it is a return address for the United States War Department, based in Honolulu, further known as Headquarters Hawaiian Department. The other clue was the envelope’s addressed recipient. And this is where the trail gets really maddening, because it is mostly deliberately rubbed out. Just enough to fail any military censor but enough for me to figure out it was addressed to a Commanding Officer, also based in Honolulu. More online checking showed the term Hawaiian Department didn’t come into official use until early in 1913, which then presented another conundrum: the final mounted photograph in the album shows a nighttime view of San Francisco’s Market Street during the September, 1904 encampment of the Sovereign Grand Lodge of the United States and Canadian Independent Order of Odd Fellows. 

But photographic archeology can be my peccadillo sometimes. In revisiting “the envelope”, I of course could not leave well enough alone. I went ahead and searched for a Commanding Officer whose first name was Thomas, the name that seems to make sense to my feeble gray matter since the sole letters “Th” appear under the Commanding Officer recipient address stamped on it. The name of Major Thomas J. Smith, who headed the Hawaii Ordnance Depot for the U.S. Army in Honolulu in 1917 was a lone result that turned up, placing it farther away from the working 1900-1910 dates I’ve assigned this album based on the final 1904 image included in it. In that case, I or anyone else may never know who took these lovely- and in the case of surviving artistic photographs from the Hawaiian Islands at the turn of the 20th century- very uncommon and rare photographs.

But the real-life photographer in me does want to give someone credit for them. Were the photographs assembled for the album after the person left military service, if they were ever enlisted in the first place? In that case, the photographer simply re-purposed an old piece of correspondence-addressed to himself or someone else- to throw everyone-and especially yours truly- off his or her trail.

So Aloha to your memory anyway, whomever you are.  And thanks for this record of Hawaii from a place lost in time. If desired, please visit here to begin your Hawaiian vacation.

2012 will mark a century since a lovely collection of photographs of Italy were taken and assembled into a personal, miniature Grand Tour type album recently added to our collection here at PhotoSeed. As photographs, I feel they stand on their own strong merits but alas, an elusive missing piece for posterity is a record of their maker.  Stamped on the cover is the simple title of its’ contents: Jtalien 1912 (Italy 1912).  After purchasing it from a gentleman in Holland several years ago, I quickly deduced the photos were of German origin.

In this regard, language was the clue. Other German material in our archive contains this early spelling for Italy in the German language as well as Italian using the capitol letter “J” instead of an I: Jtalien and Jtalienische. But what sealed the deal for me was the curious addition to the album in the form of a later mounted snapshot of a group of 12 men wearing military clothing. A small sign propped up in front of them states “1914 Feldzug 1915”.

From this photograph I determined they are wearing World War I issue,  Imperial German Army uniforms.  “Feldzug” further translates to “Campaign” in German.  I’m no military expert, but these guys don’t exactly look like they have just returned from the front lines. Instead, they are smiling, one holds a cigar, and another bearded soldier propped up in the back row poses for the camera while placing his hands on the shoulders of his comrades. Two women flank the group and appear to be nurses of some kind. A military hospital setting?  Or perhaps soldiers on an extended R&R assignment?  Is the same elusive photographer responsible for the marvelous images in this album sitting among them? And why not the possibilty one of the nurses could actually be our photographer? How did this album end up in the Netherlands, which remained neutral during The Great War?  For these questions I have no answers at the moment, just more questions.

Another potential clue to the album’s familial origin is the inclusion of a photograph of two women sitting side-saddle on horses. They may only be part of a larger party connected with the album’s fox hunt gathering photographs or merely a separate moment of repose while they take a pleasure ride in another location.

My own hunch is the woman looking directly into the camera on horseback is the same woman shown in a separate album photograph. In it, she presents several gifts-a bottle of wine (?) and clutch of flowers to a group of Italian village children, several barefoot. But again, deductions, not facts.

What I can say conclusively about the album’s 60 or so mounted photographs is they are a visual delight and important record of Italy before the outbreak of World War I. Some of the images are strikingly beautiful: the Italian countryside in particular but also of subject matter one rarely sees in “typical” Grand Tour type albums (not the commercial or snapshot variety) : carefully framed and presented images of dirt roads, life in a back alley,  a woman in bonnet caught unawares while most likely harvesting mussels at the seashore, a mysterious detail of a gate affixed with several crosses as well as many of the country’s famous landmarks and important Roman Catholic churches.

These photographs are not topographical records but instead are done with a pronounced pictorialist aesthetic. Printed in multiple colors (ozobrome-a transfer pigment process-may be a hunch for some) and mounted on colored supports-they are individual jewels waiting for your own critical eye. Please follow this link to make your own Italian pilgrimage to the past.

Archive Highlights Showcases Stellar Material Relevant to the History of Artistic Photography Within the Overall Growing Archive since 2011: be it the Work of a Singular Photographer or in-depth Compilation of Published Material. To see all Highlights please go here.

 

A Pictorialist Italian Grand Tour Album From 1912

This extraordinary album (16.5 x 21.5 x 5.0 cm) of unique loose pigment prints was most likely the work of an unknown German photographer as it is stamped Jtalien (Italy) 1912 on the album recto. This etymological difference for the word Italy is an attribute of the German language, where the capital letter J was often used to replace the capital letter I. (1.) Another strong indicator of a German maker, which we explore further in the accompanying blog post for this album, is the inclusion of a mounted snapshot (2.) showing a group of German World War 1 soldiers-smiling and flanked by two female nurses while posing for a photograph in an unknown location. A small sign propped up by two of the soldiers spells out “1914 Feldzug 1915”, indicating they took part in the first year campaign of the Great War. It is certainly possible one of these soldiers or even one of the nurses is responsible for taking the photographs making up the album.

Album Particulars

The album contains views of several well known Italian landmarks, including the Colosseum and Arch of Constantine in Rome as well as St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. However, most of the views in the album are not done in typical tourist snapshot fashion, but instead from an artistic viewpoint. For example, one of the more interesting photographs from a compositional perspective shows the dome of St. Peter’s— sprouting from the horizon line of an expanse of open fields before it. This atypical photographic vantage point seems deliberately sought out, with the final result a pleasing balance of open sky, the earth below and mankind’s illuminating achievement sandwiched between both.

Multiple building, cityscape and countryside views, coastline, native citizen and recreational photographs of Italy are included in this album, most done in our estimation with deliberate thought and with a pictorialist sensibility.

We have chosen to label these as pigment prints, owing to their multiple color variations and with the understanding that more than one process may have been used in their making, possibly including carbon, gum bichromate, ozobrome or other media. Additionally, some of the photographs have been mounted on trimmed art-paper supports within  the impressed window openings on their respective colored cardstock mounts. (3.) It also seems likely the author of these works used a small camera. Since most of the prints average 3 1/4 x 4 1/4” in size, it is conceivable the original negatives were produced using a roll film type camera similar to the 3A Folding Pocket Kodak type or similar. If the photographer owned this model, the advantage of a viewfinder that could be shifted 90 degrees in order to take horizontal images would also explain the two formats represented in the album. On a provenance note, the album was purchased in late 2009 from a former owner in the Netherlands.  Additional insight into this album is  welcomed.

NOTES:

1. LETTER J: FROM: DE.WIKIPEDIA.ORG: ACCESSED: 2011
2. THIS PHOTOGRAPH IS CENTER MOUNTED ON A SUPPORT CONSISTENT AND NATIVE TO THE ALBUM.
3. THESE MOUNTS SHOW EVIDENCE THEY WERE CUT FROM LARGER SHEETS AS THEY ARE NOT ALL UNIFORM. THEIR EDGES ARE OFTEN LEFT ROUGH-INDICATING THEY MAY HAVE BEEN INDIVIDUALLY CUT BY HAND USING A STRAIGHT-EDGE AS A GUIDE RATHER THAN A CLEAN CUT THAT WOULD BE EXPECTED WITH THE USE OF A RAZOR OR KNIFE. THE DIMENSIONS OF MANY OF THE IMPRESSED WINDOW OPENINGS IN WHICH EACH PRINT IS GLUE-MOUNTED IN THE CORNERS IS 9.4 X 11.9 CM BUT OTHER SIZES EXIST FOR THE ALBUM. AND LIKE THE SUPPORT MOUNTS, THESE EMBOSSED WINDOW OPENINGS ARE NOT UNIFORM IN TERMS OF THEIR LOCATION ON EACH SUPPORT. IT WOULD APPEAR THE PHOTOGRAPHER HAND-SIGHTED THE TEMPLATE TO CREATE EACH EMBOSSED WINDOW ON THE RECTO OF THE MOUNT BEFORE PRESSURE WAS APPLIED IN ORDER TO CRIMP THE MOUNTS. EVIDENCE ON THE MOUNT VERSO TYPICALLY SHOW BURNISHING ABRASIONS IN THE CORNER AREAS OF THE WINDOW AS WELL.

The process of preparing material for this website has been a real education for me.  In picking apart and studying the components making up the two latest French portfolios added: L’Épreuve Photographique (The Photographic Print) for 1904 and 1905, knowledge has come in both large waves and tiny revelations. One of these waves has been some of the poetic, profound, and often humorous writing of French art historian and critic Émile Dacier. 

Here is an example of him speaking of his perceptions on the artistic photographic plates-included in his preface to the 1904 portfolio:

“These are the memories of distant lands, these are the tragedies and comedies of the street where chance is the great director, and here the pressure of crowds, the galloping squadrons, the shock waves on the breakers…”

And earlier, his delightful account of Photography and photographers in the dark ages-before their creative impulse was set free:

“Photographers! These terrifying figures to children that their souls have kept long stubborn grudges! …To visit these murderers as children we had to dress up-like the condemned.  After the mandatory cutting of the hair, torture ensued by the shaking of the neck yoke…”

Tiny revelations: the editor of L’Épreuve Photographique, Roger Aubry, was not only a photographer and inventor, but a passionate balloonist who survived a crash into the Grand Palais in 1905 while taking photographs above Paris. And another: the very typeface that survives in some of the signage used in the Paris Métro train stations- Auriol, was designed by namesake George Auriol, a French artist, type and graphic designer who used his new typeface as well as other Art Nouveau elements in his commission of  L’Épreuve Photographique by the Paris publisher Librairie Plon.

 In 1903, Aubry had taken over the editorship of the Librairie Plon’s  Annuaire Général et International de la Photographie. (General and International Directory of Photography) Published in Paris, this was an annual encompassing a little bit of everything photographic, but with a more scientific focus in keeping with the tradition of the publication. I was fortunate to have bought a copy of the 1905 edition many years ago, and used it as a reference work when preparing these galleries.  “Directeur”, another way of saying “Editor”, is the title assigned Aubry for this publication as well as for L’Épreuve Photographique.  My respect for his work in compiling these portfolios keeps in step with the tradition of the enlightened city of Paris, their place of publication. We have additionally prepared a PhotoSeed Highlight for this work here, with a further link to all 96 plates making up the portfolios.

Between 1904-1905, one of the most luxurious subscription photographic plate publications in France or Europe was L’Épreuve Photographique. (The Photographic Print) Published in Paris, and not satisfied with identifying itself as a mere photographic journal, it billed itself as a “monthly portfolio of luxury” instead. (Portfolio périodique de grand luxe)  Over the course of two years, prize-winning salon photographs from French and European pictorialist circles were selected for inclusion in this oversized publication as hand-pulled, copper plate (taille-douce) screen photogravures (héliogravures) from the Paris atelier of Charles Wittmann. 

The following is a translated excerpt from the publisher Librairie Plon in 1905 describing this work:

“The Photographic Print is in fact not a newspaper or a magazine but a collection of intaglio photographic reproductions of the most notable and original work, signed by the art’s most renowned photographers from France and from abroad, and carefully selected irrespective of gender or process, provided the artistic intent is clear and done with perfect execution.
We adopted the gravure as the only mode of reproduction capable of showing off all of the qualities from the varied effects of the current processes of photographic prints.
Each subject is reproduced in its color and original dimensions; and mounted along with complimentary supports that provide harmonizing color, in order to form an identical work to the original presented under the same conditions of development and artistic effect.
Each plate is covered with a tissue guard that includes the title and author’s name and any special instructions. The publication is issued periodically in issues measuring 44 by 32 cm, in a color cover designed by Georges Auriol; the series, complete in one year, includes 48 plates and is accompanied by an index page of titles printed in two tones with character designs and ornaments by Auriol.”  1.

Please continue to our two L’Épreuve Photographique galleries, for 1904 and 1905 showcasing all 96 plates from this important publication.

 

1. EXCERPT: ADVERTISEMENT FOR L’ÉPREUVE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE (2E SÉRIE) IN: ANNUAIRE GÉNÉRAL ET INTERNATIONAL DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE: LIBRAIRIE PLON:PARIS:14TH ANNÉE-1905: UNPAGINATED.

In France, prior to taking on the complex task of publishing the journal L’Art Photographique, (The Photographic Art) first appearing in July, 1899, Georges Carré and C. Naud in Paris had made a reputation for publishing volumes dealing in scientific, medical, as well as photographic subjects. Their journal the Photo-Gazette under the editorship of Georges Mareschal was the best known.

With the committed goal of keeping the relevance of photographic art before the public eye and with the backing of France’s elite photographic body in the form of The Photo Club de Paris, Carré and Naud under the leadership of Mareschal set about contracting with multiple printing ateliers throughout the country  (1.)  in order to showcase work produced by the club’s members.

Certainly with Franz Goerke’s Die Kunst in der Photographie journal in Germany serving as a model beginning only two years earlier in 1897, the publishers believed bigger was better, (46.0 x 34.0 cm)  and the task of presenting French work (2.) as reproduction plates in the original size the photographer intended was the stated goal from the outset. Everything about this photographic magazine is admirable, and for France, this evolution would break new ground as the first monthly photographic publication solely devoted to the image itself. Looking back, it is also an important historical record of the cutting-edge, French photographic engraving being produced at this time. The photographic plates included with it are printed in the finest hand-pulled photogravure, collotype, (photocollographie) and single and multiple-color halftone. (similigravure) These in turn are printed, often by a separate atelier, on a variety of French papers running the gamut from hand-made plate paper to traditional examples of thick coated stock.  To satisfy the photographic purist, technical details for the images are often supplied on the accompanying plate tissue-guards.  So in a word, revolutionary. 

In the mission statement laid out by editor Georges Mareschal in the first issue, he explains the admirable intention of employing the cover itself to showcase a photograph. But because of logistical problems not revealed, (3.) the talents of Czech Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha were employed in 1899 to design its cover used consistently over the one year run ending in June, 1900.

At PhotoSeed, we are excited to be able to present all 48 photographs from L’Art Photographique in their order of publication beginning here.

Notes:

1. Nine in France and the long established firm of Jean Malveaux in Brussels.
2. Although several examples from Argentina, Belgium, England and a Polish photographer working in Paris are included.
3. My own conjecture on this surmises the publishers felt an over-sized magazine needed to be “shown off” better-especially with the resources being devoted to its production, and there was certainly no better way to do this than to employ a cover “poster effect” in the form of a full-color lithograph by Mucha.