Alvin Langdon Coburn Portrait of Charles Lang Freer

Alvin Langdon Coburn Portraits of Charles Lang Freer, 1909
view Alvin Langdon Coburn Portraits of Charles Lang Freer, 1909 digital asset number 1
CREATOR:
Coburn, Alvin Langdon 1882-1966
Freer, Charles Lang 1856-1919
SUBJECT:
Freer, Charles Lang 1856-1919
Freer Gallery of Art
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:
1 linear foot
TYPE:
Photographs
DATE:
1909
1909-1909
NOTES:
Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1966) was born in Boston, Massachusetts to a middle class British family. Coburn began exploring photography after receiving a camera for his eighth birthday. However, it was not until a few years later that he began exploring photography seriously. Coburn opened his first studio in New York City in 1902 to exhibit his prints, and became part of a crowd that wanted to establish photography as art. He moved to London in 1904 to take portraits of celebrities, including an iconic one of George Bernard Shaw posed nude as Auguste Rodin's "The Thinker." Coburn not only shot portraits, but also unique street scenes of New York City. He was quite interested in creating the fractured affects of cubism and futurism through use of photography, as demonstrated in his "vortographs." He experimented with perspective and abstract patterns. Later in his life, Coburn became disinterested in photography as his interest in mysticism grew. He resumed photography in the 1950s before his death in 1966.
SUMMARY:
Photographs of Charles Lang Freer taken by Alvin Langdon Coburn, February 1909. They depict Freer in a variety of poses, such as leaning against a desk, examining some artwork, or simply facing the camera. One print was sent to the Freer Gallery in 1955 by a relative of Freer's business partner Frank Hecker. Two autochromes and 14 platinum prints.
CITE AS:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer
TOPIC:
Art, Asian--Collectors and collecting
Art, American--Collectors and collecting
Art--Collectors and collecting
LOCAL NUMBER:
FSA A.01 12.01.2
SEE MORE ITEMS IN:
Charles Lang Freer Papers 1856-1919
Charles Lang Freer Papers, Collected Photographs 1876-1931
Charles Lang Freer Papers, Portraits 1876-1931
DATA SOURCE:
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives