Wapping, from London

Artist Alvin Langdon Coburn (British, 1882-1966)

Date1909

DimensionsOverall: 8 1/2 x 6 3/4 in. (21.6 x 17.2 cm);
Image: 8 x 6 3/8 in. (20.3 x 16.3 cm);
Mount: 13 x 12 1/16 in. (33 x 30.6 cm)

MediumPhotogravure

ClassificationPhotographs

Credit LineFrederick B. and Kate L. Shoemaker Fund

Object number

1989.53

Not on View

Label TextAlvin Langdon Coburn was given a 4 x 5 Kodak camera when he was eight years old. He had a talent for composition and by the age of 16 his skills in the darkroom were considerable. His talent was noticed by his cousin, the internationally known photographer F. Holland Day, who encouraged, mentored, and promoted Coburn. By the time he was 17, nine of Coburn’s photographs were included in an exhibition sponsored by the Royal Photographic Society in London. Coburn continued to study with some of the major talents of the day, including Edward Steichen, Gertrude Käsebier, and Arthur Wesley Dow. Wapping comes from a period considered Coburn’s most successful. During this time his technique and craftsmanship combined with a philosophical aesthetic driven by the teachings of Dow and by exposure to the art of Japan. This photograph of Wapping, a district situated on the north bank of the River Thames, shows the influence of Japanese prints through a compressed vertical composition achieved, in part, by the cropping of the pier and bowsprit on the right.Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, Refraction/Reflection, April 20-September 2, 2012.

TMA, The City, November 6, 2015-February 14, 2016.