“Records of Atmosphere and Effect": The Photographs of Alvin Langdon Coburn

A child prodigy, Alvin Langdon Coburn was given his first camera at age eight and began publicly exhibiting his photographs in 1898 at only fifteen years old. He soon became a leading figure of the international Pictorialist movement, heralded by Alfred Stieglitz as “possibly the youngest star in the firmament.” Coburn spent much of his career crisscrossing the Atlantic between New York and London, capturing both cities at a time of dramatic change.  His photographs attest not only to his dual national identity, but also to the aesthetic tensions within the Pictorialist movement, divided between old and new, the nostalgic and the modern. 

Andrea Wolk Rager, assistant professor of art history at Case Western Reserve University, will explore the full scope of Coburn’s career, as he sought to prove the aesthetic merit of photography and boldly challenge the conventional understanding of photographic representation.

Free, no registration required.