TELEGRAPH POLES

New York: Alfred Stieglitz, 1903. White, Clarence H.. Hand-pulled photogravure, 7 7/16 x 4 3/16 inches [18.89 x 10.50 cm] printed on tissue, tipped to the original laid paper leaf, 11 3/4 x 8 1/8 inches [29.85x 20.96 cm]. Fine. The image is a fine full-tone photogravure from CAMERA WORK 3, 1903.

Clarence H. White (1871 - 1925) was born in West Carlisle, Ohio and moved to Newark, Ohio in 1887. An early interest in art was thwarted by his parents. Employed by a wholesale grocery firm, he began making photographs after a visit to the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. In 1898, he exhibited ten photographs at the First Philadelphia Photographic Salon, which brought him to the attention of Alfred Stieglitz and other Pictorialists. By 1899, he was exhibiting widely, acting as a juror for salons, and organizing exhibitions of Stieglitz, Day, Keiley, Käsebier, et al. In 1906, he moved to New York, assisting at the Photo-Secession Galleries. In 1907, he collaborated with Stieglitz on a series of portrait and figure studies, which were subsequently published in Camera Work, and began his first appointment as a lecturer in photography at the Teachers College, Columbia University - followed in 1908 with an appointment at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, and in 1914, he opened the Clarence H. White School of Photography, New York. As a teacher he profoundly influenced the art and technique of a number of important photographers, including: Margaret Bourke-White, Anton Bruehl, Laura Gilpin, Dorothea Lange, Paul Outerbridge, Ralph Steiner, Karl Struss and Doris Ulmann.