66 photogravure portraits of artists, writers, statesmen and other public figures, primarily American and English, in photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn's 1913 Men of Mark (from 1904 to 1913) and his 1922 More Men of Mark (from 1913 to 1922).
![Alvin Langdon Coburn [self portrait], Harlech, May 19th, 1922. Digital ID: 486407](image/210_large.jpeg "Alvin Langdon Coburn [self portrait], Harlech, May 19th, 1922. Digital ID: 486407")
Alvin Langdon Coburn [self portrait], Harlech, May 19th, 1922. Digital ID: 486407
This digital collection offers the portraits taken by American-born photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1966) primarily in England, where he moved in 1904, and published in handsome editions in England and the United States. The volumes, portraying contemporary key figures from before World War I into the postwar era, carry on a tradition (and the “Men of Mark” title) begun at least a generation earlier.
Coburn had a special affinity for seeing his work in printed form, having absorbed the credo of Alfred Stieglitz that a fine photogravure was the best expression of some images. He produced other titles of New York and London scenes; illustrated literature; and most ambitiously, collaborated with Henry James for the frontispieces of the author’s definitive collected works.
Bogardus, Ralph F. Pictures and texts: Henry James, A.L. Coburn, and new ways of seeing in literary culture (c1984) Studies in photography; no. 2.
Coburn, Alvin Langdon. Alvin Langdon Coburn, photographer: an autobiography;
edited by Helmut and Alison Gernsheim (1978)