Re: Steichen image in April's 'Vanity Fair'
aaaaHA. Infinitely clearer to me as well and I thank you for your very clear and pointed explanation! When I saw the image online I couldn't figure out the connection between the pond image as well and NOW I understand. As an aside, having done lots of pd/cyano, I am very surprised that he was able to derive that flesh color from that process. I would not be at all surprised that there is a gum layer lurking there as well. Unless pt/pd oranges over time and/or the paper has oranged and/or the scan is WAY more color saturated as Tom Hawkins I think said. But read further and I'll tell you why I wonder if this is not the case. Back to the Pond image. Of three articles I have on it the ArtNews says as I have said it is a hand-colored BW image. When I initially read this I did not believe it was correct. BUT, to a novice, gum over platinum could certainly be considered a "hand colored bw image" even if incorrect. This is why I say auctioneers/those in the arts need to get their processes straight, but it really stems from people being ignorant of alt, which none of us on this list are. All sources say there are only 3 of this image. All sources agree one was sold off, one remains in the Met, and one is at the Moma. I don't know the buyer of the $2.9 million one, though. The Photo On Campus article is really a neat one because they have gone to recreate where the image was taken. This magazine referred to it as "a richly layered gum bichromate print." Again, a layer of pd lurking in there is not too far off the description but enough for us altees. Believe me, I am not justifying this error, just acknowledging how it can happen, especially knowing how few photographers even understand what a gum print even is. But my other source is the Steichen book (Lowell 1978) wherein Steichen is writing to Stieglitz and says ,"...Another one [-] Moonrise [Mamaroneck, New York, 1904, pl. 35] in three printings: first printing, grey black plat[inum]--2nd, plain blue print [cyanotype] (secret)[-] 3rd, greenish gum. It is so very dark I must take the glass off because it acts too much like a mirror. I hope they will handle it carefully--of course the varnish will protect it some--" Source Leaf 54, Alfred Stieglitz Archive, Collection of American Literature, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. I have no idea what "secret" refers to. This description refers to the "cyano/plati one at the Moma. It is pictured in color in the book. In the back of the book it describes the plate as a platinum and ferroprussiate print! So either they, too, left out the gum layer, or the three process print Steichen refers to is NOT the one in the Moma and refers to one of the two others. BUT both of the images I have of the print that sold for $2.9 million are the same print, looking very much like a layer of yellow and blue gum over a pt print. Much more glowing than the cyano/pd in the Moma. End of story, not really important, just thought it'd be of interest to someone out there, and having NOTHING to do with our cigar boy. Can't wait for my Vanity Fair to come in the mail now.... Chris __________________ Christina Z. Anderson http://christinaZanderson.com/ __________________ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Katharine Thayer" <kthayer@pacifier.com> To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca> Sent: Monday, March 09, 2009 9:29 PM Subject: Re: Steichen image in April's 'Vanity Fair' Actually, the analysis, on the two that were owned by the Metropolitan, one of which was auctioned for $2.9 million, was done by the conservation department at the Metropolitan (who do have access to electron microscopes and all the best techniques for determining what a print is made of). By whose assertion is it said that the print that sold for $2.9 million was gum over platinum? By the Metropolitan's assertion, by the experts who spoke on the record about the sale at the time, and by the assertion of the auction catalog itself. I assume that the analysis of the cyanotype over platinum owned by MOMA was done by MOMA. ArtNews is just simply wrong, as was the person who claimed on this thread that the print that sold for $2.9 million was a straight gum print; it's just not so. But that wasn't the question I was trying to answer today; I've known those facts for several years already. What I was trying to determine today was what was the image that was reproduced on page 61 of Vanity Fair? Your comment made it seem like you were saying that the image in Vanity Fair was the same image as the one that sold for $2.9 million, but maybe one of the other prints? That's what didn't make sense to me (besides the assertion that the one that sold for $2.9 million was a gum print, which simply isn't accurate). Why would one of those prints be in a show at a gallery? I can imagine one of them showing up at Christy's or Sotheby's, or in a museum retrospective, but why at Greenberg; it didn't make sense to me. And now Tom has solved the mystery; it wasn't that image at all but the one I found online, and whatever you were talking about didn't have any particular connection to the thread. Okay, that makes sense to me, and that's all I was looking for, was some sense. Katharine On Mar 9, 2009, at 6:07 PM, Katharine Thayer wrote: Well, okay, since no one would answer my question I spent the afternoon out in a roaring sleetstorm looking for a copy of the April Vanity Fair to answer the question for myself. I went to the library and all the stores that might carry general interest magazines in my nearest big town, and no one has the April issue available yet.
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