biography of Alvin Langdon COBURN (1882-1966)
Birth place: Boston
Addresses: NYC, 1902-1912; England; Wales
Profession: Photographer
Studied: Arthur W. Dow
Exhibited: Royal Photogr. Soc., London, 1900, 1957, 1973; NYC studio, 1902.
Member: Photo-Secession Grp, 1902 (founder); Linked Ring, 1903; Royal Photogr. Soc., 1931.
Work: IMP.
Comments: Encouraged to become a photographer by his cousin, F. Holland Day, in 1898; Coburn worked in a pictorialist mode from 1902 until c.1910. In 1912 he made a series of bird's eye views of New York City and in that same year moved to London where he became a member of the Vorticist circle after meeting Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis. In 1917, Coburn began making his revolutionary Vortographs, non-objective photographs of pieces of crystal and wood. Illustrator: London," 1909, "New York," 1910, "Men of Mark," 1913.
Sources: Witkin & London, 112; Baigell, Dictionary