“AMERICA’S FIRST CONVINCING TESTAMENT TO THE IDEA OF PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART”: VERY RARE PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION COPY OF THE COMPLETE VOLUME V OF CAMERA NOTES, 1901-1902, INSCRIBED BY STIEGLITZ TO LEADING PHOTOGRAPHIC EDITOR JOHN NICOL, WITH NICOL’S PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM OF 18 VINTAGE ALBUMEN AND TINTYPE PORTRAITS OF HIMSELF AND OTHER MAJOR PHOTOGRAPHERS
STIEGLITZ, Alfred. Camera Notes and Proceedings of The Camera Club of New York. Volume V. New York: Camera Club, 1901-1902. Quarto, original green cloth gilt. WITH: (NICOL, John) Photograph Album. Square quarto, original full brown morocco gilt; 18 vintage mounted cartes-de-visite and one tintype. Housed together in custom chemise and box.
First edition of Stieglitz’ Camera Notes, the complete Volume V, an exceptional presentation/association copy inscribed to a leading Pictorialist photographer and editor, “To Dr. John Nicol, who has shown himself as the only square and fair photographic editor in the United States during the past five years. With appreciation & esteem. Alfred Stieglitz, Founder, Editor & Manager, May 5—1902” [date underlined], featuring 30 splendid tissue-guarded photogravure plates, many by Stieglitz and Edward Steichen. Accompanied by a rare vintage Photograph Album containing 18 albumen cartes-de-viste and a rare tintype of portraits of Nicol and other major photographers.
Produced by Alfred Stieglitz from its inception in 1897 until July 1902, Camera Notes succeeded the Journal of the Camera Club of New York and thereby “ushered in not only a new century, but an entirely different attitude toward photography…Camera Notes argued that photography deserved a place among the fine arts—a concept as challenging to the general public as it was to most painters and sculptors. Taken as a whole, the 24 issues of Camera Notes comprise America’s first convincing testament to the idea of photography as art” (Peterson, Camera Notes, 9). “A perfectionist in typography and printing” (DAB, 779), Stieglitz is acclaimed “‘not only the greatest living photographer, but the greatest propagandist for photography” (Roth, 40). In editing the groundbreaking issues of Camera Notes, the subsequent Camera Work, and in leading the Photo-Secession movement with his own luminous images, Stieglitz stood at the center of a visual revolution.
In addition to splendid photogravure plates by Gertrude Käsebier, Clarence White and others, this volume features Stieglitz’ own “Icy Night,” “September,” “Spring,” “Spring Showers-The Coach” and “Spring Showers-The Sweeper,” along with Edward Steichen’s “Judgment of Paris” and James Craig Annan’s “Return from the Pasture.” This copy of Volume V is further accompanied by a rare vintage photograph album from the library of Scottish-born photographer Dr. John Nicol, a founding member of the Edinburgh Photographic Society who emigrated to America in 1885 and became the chief editor and a leading contributor to influential journals such as American Amateur Photographer. Within is Nicol’s article on photography’s “Past, the Present and the Future” (No. 1:5-10). Volume V complete with Numbers 1-4 (July 1901-April 1902). Featuring 30 beautiful tissue-guarded tipped-in photogravure plates, numerous in-text images and diagrams. Each issue with original printed green wrappers, advertisements at rear: Number Two with additional advertisement leaf in front, Number One with tipped-in errata slip. Photograph album with 18 vintage albumen cartes-de-visite and one rare tintype of leading turn-of-the-century photographers, members of the Edinburgh Camera Club and a portrait of Dr. Nicol, together with those of his family: each mounted within paper frames on thick gilt-edged leaves. See Open Book, 54; Parr & Badger I:64. Tiny inked circle around Nicol’s name in Index. Photograph album with occasional light penciled captioning beneath framed images.
Images quite clean, faint foxing mainly to preliminaries of about-fine Camera Notes in a fine binding stamped on the front board with the gilt seal of Camera Club of New York. Elegantly bound photograph album with bright albumen prints and tintype and only light scattered foxing. An exceptional two volumes with a highly prized association.