Re: Pond-moonrise (was: Re: Steichen image in April's 'Vanity Fair'
Umm, thanks, but that information is not accurate, because the print
at the bottom of my page is without any doubt the print that is owned
by MOMA; that's documented in dozens of places including the book
that I scanned it from. It was definitely not the print owned by
MOMA that was sold at auction, but one of the prints owned by the
Metropolitan. I can believe that the image at the top of my page is
not the print that was auctioned, because I'm not sure of the
documentation of that image, but I'm absolutely sure of the MOMA
print, and that it is not the auctioned print.
It's possible that the print that was auctioned was similar to the
MOMA print, but if the print at the top of my page is not the print
that was auctioned, then what is it? Are there then more than three
prints?
The plot thickens,
Katharine
On Mar 17, 2009, at 12:46 PM, Jean Daubas wrote:
Katharine,
Thanks for showing us the 3 prints side by side but I'm not sure of
your conclusions.
In fact, the bottom 3rd print that you think is often shown by
error as the "record auction" print is probably really the auction
print.
I give you the link to the February 2006 Sotheby's auction
catalogue where Steichen's "the Pond - Moonlight" was lot # 6,
sold 2,928,000 USD .
http://www.sothebys.com/app/live/lot/LotDetail.jsp?lot_id=4L2KF
the illustration and the measurements clearly show that the 1st
print you put on your page (found on a blog) is not the one which
was sold at Sotheby's : it is far more rectangular than the actual
one. By respect for Edward Steichen's memory, i reall hope no one
dared to crop the original mage ???
You will find on this catalog page a very extensive description of
the print and its sister prints as well as some interesting
indications about Steichen's workflow...
hope it helps to clear the issue,
cheers from France,
Jean
********************************
Jean Daubas, auteur-photographe
16 rue de Bourg-Sec
25440 LIESLE (France)
+33 (0)3 81 57 50 13 et +33 (0) 681 531 289
jean.daubas@wanadoo.fr
****************************************
----- Original Message ----- From: "Katharine Thayer"
<kthayer@pacifier.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2009 8:04 PM
Subject: Pond-moonrise (was: Re: Steichen image in April's 'Vanity
Fair'
Judy wrote:
However, on the topic of those "Moon Over Mamaroneck" AND the
Flatiron building prints (tho one or more of them could be
Stieglitz & I'm too harried today to check, in fact I'm not
really here at this moment)... I've tried to figure out how the
blue sky was printed in, with no other sky tone, and decided
that there were likely 2 negatives, either one positive & one
negative, of one much contrastier than the other....
Any info?
Judy, I agree with you on both counts: (1) that Steichen's
pictorialist photographs were much more beautiful and interesting
than his "straight" photographs, and (2) that it looks like the
blue tone in the sky, especially in the pond print where the blue
was printed with cyanotype, just about had to be printed in with
a positive "negative" in order to get that much tone. You've got
a good eye.
I did that once, when I wanted a glow of golden light between the
trees in a forest shot; I printed the golden color in with a
reversed negative; there wasn't any way to get that much tone
between the trees using the original negative.
Whether this is what Steichen actually did we can only speculate,
because AFAIK all Steichen's negatives are still in the
possession of, and under the tight control of, Joanna Steichen.
God (in the form of the aforenamed woman herself) may strike me
dead for this, but I've made a page with reproductions of all
three of the prints (I hope) of this image, so we can compare
them and evaluate the validity of your observation. I'm not so
sure it's accurate with the first print, the gum over platinum; I
think maybe this was printed from just the negative. What do you
think? But the bottom one, the cyanotype over platinum, it seems
pretty certain to me that the cyan is printed with a reversed
negative. I don't know if MOMA has analyzed this print the way
the Met has analyzed theirs, but since I don't know otherwise,
I'm taking on faith that they know for sure that this is
cyanotype over platinum and not hand-applied color over
platinum. I'd be willing to bet big bucks that he simply colored
in the moon (notice that he didn't think to color in a reflection
of it in the water).
Look quick, because this page will self-destruct in a few days.
I'm hyperventilating already at the thought that I actually did
this, even though it's all for a good cause.
http://www.pacifier.com/~kthayer/html/Steichenpond.html
As for the Flatiron, that doesn't seem quite as clearcut to me,
and besides there are so many copies of that image (mostly
reproductions from a copyneg made from the original gum print)
that it's almost impossible to say which one we're talking
about. The Met alone has five versions of it, I think, and the
version they show on their website doesn't correspond by date and
description to any of the ones listed in the catalog of the
Stieglitz collection, so it's all pretty confusing. But would
you say it's probably true of this one?
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pict/ho_33.43.39.htm
Katharine
http://www.theartwolf.com/imagenestAW/steichen_pond.jpg
the actual $2.9 million print?
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