09/01/2022
A Rare and Wonderful Find
Camera Work, edited and published by Alfred Stieglitz largely at his own expense from 1903 to 1917, issued fifty quarterly numbers before declining subscriptions, wartime materials shortages, and growing interest on Stieglitz’s part in other forms of graphic expression led him to cease its publication.
The design of Camera Work was created by Stieglitz and remained consistent throughout its run, including the papers, typography, and graphic elements. The cover of each number, designed by Edward Steichen, was gray-green wove stock, with text and embellishments printed in a light gray ink. The text was a heavy cream laid paper with deckle edges, and bore the watermark “Enfield S. CO 1887”. Its color provided tonal contrast to enhance the appearance of the monochrome Japan tissue overlays. Each gravure was tipped to its companion text leaf at two corners using water-soluble glue. The printed signatures were gathered, sewn, and glued, and the cover attached.
Different production firms were employed in response to Stieglitz’s relentless take-no-prisoners pursuit of mechanical and aesthetic perfection. Beginning with a press run of 1000 copies (later reduced to 500) and about 650 paying subscribers, the subscription base eroded to 304 by 1912 and to a dismal 36 at the time the final number of Camera Work was issued. Stieglitz is said to have destroyed the unsold remainder of each issue, creating an artificial scarcity that has bedeviled collectors of Camera Work ever since.
From the outset, Stieglitz made a point of donating issues of Camera Work to the New York Public Library, the Royal Photographic Society, and The Camera Club of New York in order to establish secure and redundant archives of Camera Work for future reference and research.
Our worn but intact copy of Camera Work 36 is notable for containing the largest single group of work by Alfred Stieglitz to appear in the fourteen-year-long history of his publication. (Second place goes to Camera Work 12, published in October, 1905, containing 10 Stieglitz gravures).
Published in October, 1911, Camera Work ###VI included sixteen gravures of images of New York City taken by Alfred Stieglitz between 1892 and 1911. The gravures were printed in black ink by Manhattan Photogravure Company of New York. Fifteen of them were printed on translucent Japan tissue known for its highly smooth surface; the sixteenth (Lower Manhattan, 1910), for reasons unknown, was printed on opaque photo paper. The cover and text pages for this volume were printed by Rogers & Company, and bound by the Knickerbocker Bindery, both of New York.
The issue in its entirety has been unbound, cleaned, and conserved. The gravures have been individually mounted and matted using museum-quality materials. We will post PDF files of the volume as received and as restored in the coming weeks. The individual gravures are listed on the Brier Hill Gallery website under Stieglitz.
