#alvin langdon coburn

[thephotoregistry]

Marius De Zayas, c.1912

Alvin Langdon Coburn

[gacougnol]

Alvin Langdon Coburn

Fifth Avenue from St Regis, New York, 1904

[henk-heijmans]

Broadway and the Singer Building by night, New York, ca. 1910 - by Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882 - 1966), American/English

[joeinct]

Shadows and Reflections, Venice, Photo by Alvin Langdon Coburn, 1905

[pinkblanc]

Alvin Langdon Coburn, Broadway and the Singer Building by night, 1910

[walzerjahrhundert]

Alvin Langdon Coburn

The Temple

1910

[the-cricket-chirps]

Henri Matisse, Self-Portrait in a Striped Shirt, 1906

Alvin Langdon Coburn, Henri Matisse photogravure, 13 May 1913

[photographyartgallery]

Alvin Langdon Coburn

[seventh-victim]

self portrait of American photographer, Alvin Langdon Coburn  c.1905

[jamesusilljournal]

The Cloud, Alvin Langdon Coburn, 1906

[throughcobwebs]

alvin langdon coburn : the bridge, venice (1908)

[thephotoregistry]

Roofs, Paris, 1913

Alvin Langdon Coburn

[duardius]

the door in the wall


late in the winter of 1911, the english-born, nyc publisher mitchell kennerley asked his friend frederic goudy «if he cared to plan for me a volume of ten short stories by H.G. Wells.» [‘Kennerley Type, The circumstances which brought its Conception’, A Journal of Composing Room Efficiency, number 70, lanston monotype, philadelphia, 1924, p5.] matthew j. bruccoli relates: «The most typographically distinguished volume bearing Kennerley’s imprint appeared in 1911. The limited edition of H.G. Wells’s The Door in the Wall and Other Stories was proposed by Alvin Langdon Coburn as a vehicle for his photographs. Kennerley commissioned Goudy to design the book, and sample pages were printed in Caslon type by Norman T. A. Munder.» [matthew j. bruccoli, The Fortunes of Mitchell Kennerley, Bookman, hbj, 1986, p51.] bruccoli then quotes much of kennerley’s article from A Journal of Composing Room Efficiency [op. cit.].  goudy was not pleased with the type fit of the sample pages & suggested to kennerley the cutting of a new face, one that would set more tightly yet carry color as caslon. kennerley relates that goudy drew inspiration from oxford’s fell types [monotype, op. cit., p5.]; but to my eye goudy was looking at jenson (or the lettera antiche tonda of the scribes). clearly, kennerley is a 20th c. neo-venetian: canted stroke to the eye of e, serif, color, fit, canted hyphen; only, the cap-height has been brought into agreement with aldine norms.   «Goudy, who retained the rights to Kennerley, leased it to the Lanston Monotype Machine Co. [lanston monotype 268] and to the Caslon Type foundry in England. … Three days after completing Kennerley Old Style, Goudy designed an entirely new face for the title page & story titles of The Door in the Wall, inspired by the lettering in the Roman Forum and accordingly named Forum Title. [bruccoli, op. cit., p53.]  «Six hundred copies of The Door in the Wall were printed in November 1911; but publication was delayed by the spoilage of Coburn’s photogravures [photo-chemical engraving process, intaglio prints], which were to be inserted in [tipped in] the books. … Only three hundred copies were published with all ten illustrations.» [bruccoli, op. cit., p55.] of the three hundred copies not containing all ten photogravures some had at least one, but the complement was made up from aquatone prints—half-tone, relief process. [gleaned from book seller descriptions on the web, vide e.g. abebooks.com].  «As with many of the events in Kennerley’s career, it is impossible to be dogmatic about when Kennerley Old Style was actually first used in a book. The Door in the Wall is usually credited with this distinction, but it seems clear that Kennerley type was used to print 1911 books that appeared before the Wells volume. Kennerley stated that the first use of the type was in the four-page prospectus printed for The Door in the Wall.» [bruccol, op. cit., p53.]

some 
settings in kennerley old style: ‹egg&dart›,  ‹hommage à klaus›, ‹slender mark›.

[henk-heijmans]

The Star, ca. 1911 - by Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882 - 1966), American/English

[joeinct]

Photo by Alvin Langdon Coburn, 1908

[5oclockcoffees]

Broadway and the Singer Building, by Night, 1910, by Alvin Langdon Coburn.

via Spirit Font.