Alvin Langdon Coburn
Vortograph

ArtistBritish, born United States, 1882–1966
CultureBritish
Titles
  • Vortograph
Date1917
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 10 5/8 × 8 1/16 in. (27 × 20.5 cm)
Sheet: 10 5/8 × 8 1/16 in. (27 × 20.5 cm)
Mount: 11 × 8 1/2 in. (28 × 21.6 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Alexandra Marshall, the S. I. Morris Photography Endowment, Louisa Stude Sarofim, The Brown Foundation, Inc. courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. M.S. Stude, the Director's Accessions Endowment, and friends of the Museum of Fine Arts in honor of the 16th Anniversary of the Photography Department
Object number93.266
Current Location
The Nancy and Rich Kinder Building
Gallery 208
Exposé

Explore Further

Department
Photography
Object Type
DescriptionAt the beginning of the 20th century, about the same time that painters were creating the first abstract canvases, photographers took up the challenge of making abstract photographs. The American artist Alvin Langdon Coburn attached prisms and mirrors to his camera and then photographed bits of crystal and wood. The results were pictures of reflected and refracted light. When Coburn exhibited the photographs in London in 1917, his friend, the poet Ezra Pound, dubbed them “Vortographs,” after a Cubist-influenced English art movement called Vorticism.
Provenance[Christie’s, London, October 29, 1992, Lot 103]; purchased by MFAH, 1993.
Exhibition History"Abstract Photographs and Drawings," at The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD, from Mar. 22 - June 25, 1995 (LN:95.13).

"A Love Affair with Pictures: 25 Years of Collecting Photographs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston," MFAH, Lower Jones and Masterson Galleries, October 14 - December 30, 2001.

"Utopia/ Dystopia: Construction and Destruction in Photography and Collage," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 11 March - 10 June, 2012.

“History of Photography I: Selections from the Museum's Collection,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, November 1, 2014–February 22, 2015.

Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
no apparent inscriptions

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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Alvin Langdon Coburn
published 1915
Book of photogravures
96.1806.A-.T
Toodles (Elsie Thomas)
Alvin Langdon Coburn
c. 1908
Gelatin silver print
2003.449
George Meredith and his daughters
Alvin Langdon Coburn
1904
Gelatin silver print
2003.450
St. Paul's from Ludgate Circus
Alvin Langdon Coburn
1905
Photogravure
2012.621
The Bridge, Venice
Alvin Langdon Coburn
1908
Halftone print
2023.632
The Dragon
Alvin Langdon Coburn
1903
Gum platinum print
2004.352
Untitled
Alvin Langdon Coburn
1902
Photogravure
2004.353
Arnold Bennett
Alvin Langdon Coburn
1913
Photogravure
76.267
The Cloud — Bavaria
Alvin Langdon Coburn
1908
Photogravure
77.54
The Fountain at Trevi
Alvin Langdon Coburn
c. 1908, published January 1908
Halftone
92.133
The Duck Pond
Alvin Langdon Coburn
c. 1908, published January 1908
Photogravure
92.132
Road to Algeciras
Alvin Langdon Coburn
c. 1908, published January 1908
Photogravure
92.131