Re: Steichen image in April's 'Vanity Fair'
all of that sounds really interesting, thanks for the details, christina.
is there some more info to be found on that platinum/palladium and
ferroprussiate printing technique?
i really have a hard time understanding how steichen got these kind of
colours (even when the colours are a little off in the online pic) with
just two layers. i'd expect the pd/pt to be a brownish colour and the
cyano blue.
they only way i can imagine getting these kind of colours is through
multple layers, each one individually toned. maybe a blackish-brown one,
a dark blue one and a third cyano somehow toned to an orange.
and did he take this pic before the invention of colour process films?
and with a single neg or with colour separations?
phritz
Christina Z. Anderson schrieb:
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.
I was curious which print of Steichen's was reproduced, in an effort
to make sense of the statement made earlier in this thread: ""There
was a good article on this image in Photo On Campus about the one
that sold for 3 million. That was a gum print, but it says there
were three prints of this negative made so I wonder how the third
one was made."
For the record, the print that sold for $2.9 million was not a gum
print, but gum over platinum. There were two other prints made
from the same negative; one of them, which Stieglitz gave to the
Metropolitan in 1933 and is still in the Met's collection AFAIK, has
been analyzed and is believed to be hand-applied colori over
platinum. The third, which is owned by MOMA, is platinum and
cyanotype.
I found an image online from the current Steichen exhibition at
Greenberg that we can actually all look at so we can all be on the
same page; I don't know if this is the one that was reproduced in
Vanity Fair, and I also don't know why it seems to be on a gay
website. The point is that it's an example of cyanotype over
palladium, which Tom was asking about, and I think it's absolutely
stunning. I have a number of Steichen monographs but I've never
seen this particular image before. I wouldn't have believed it
possible to get such warm flesh tones simply from a combination of
palladium and cyanotype, but I'm told by someone who used to print
with this combination that this is typical of the combination of
processes. This is the first time ever that I have wished to print
in any process than gum; I really love the way this looks.
http://boyculture.typepad.com/boy_culture/2009/03/through-the-
years.html
Katharine
On Mar 9, 2009, at 11:45 AM, Katharine Thayer wrote:
I don't have Vanity Fair in front of me and it would take some
traveling to find one; can someone enlighten me as to which print
is reproduced in the magazine? Thanks,
Katharine
On Mar 7, 2009, at 8:21 PM, Tom Hawkins wrote:
Hi Folks,
I know it’s only a magazine reproduction, but...
In the April issue of Vanity Fair (p.61) there’s an image from a
Steichen exhibit currently at Greenberg in NYC.
It’s described as a “palladium ferroprusiate print.”
Am I correct in assuming that’s a gum over palladium?
Tom
www.tomhawkinsphotographs.com
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