Alvin Langdon Coburn

• December 10, 2025

Alvin Langdon Coburn

______

Photographer



[American, 1882–1966]










Vortographs of Ezra Pound



“Why
should not the camera throw off the shackles of
conventional representation?”

               
               
               
               
               
             
   – Alvin Langdon Coburn



for more Vortographs see the  George
Eastman House Still Photograph Archive






 







Portraits:  George
Bernard Shaw – Gertrude Stein – Wyndham Lewis – Jacob
Epstein

“I have not attempted to do
anything eccentric in the way of portrayals,
but I have studied my men and their works with
enthusiasm, and in each instance I have tried
to catch and reveal the elusive something that
differentiates a man of talent from his
fellows, and makes life worth while, worth
struggling with towards ever great
understanding.”

                                                                                                                                              
from Alvin Langdon Coburn


For more portraits see: New
York Public Library has a
Men of Mark series:




  Gelatin silver print, 1916-17

  11 1/8 x 8 3/8″ (28.2 x 21.2 cm)

  Thomas Walther Collection,

 Grace M. Mayer Fund
   


Image and text from

 

Museum
of Modern Art  




Vortograph

Alvin Langdon Coburn

(American, 1882–1966)

Inventing Abstraction, 1910–1925

December 23, 2012–April 15, 2013

The intricate patterns of light and line in this
photograph, and the cascading tiers of crystalline
shapes, were generated through the use of a
kaleidoscopic contraption invented by the
American/British photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn, a
member of London’s Vorticist group. To refute the idea
that photography, in its helplessly accurate capture of
scenes in the real world, was antithetical to
abstraction, Coburn devised for his camera lens an
attachment made up of three mirrors, clamped together in
a triangle, through which he photographed a variety of
surfaces to produce the results in these images. The
poet and Vorticist Ezra Pound coined the term
“vortographs” to describe Coburn’s experiments. Although
Pound went on to criticize these images as lesser
expressions than Vorticist paintings, Coburn’s work
would remain influential.







© George Eastman
House

Vortographs
  
from the George
Eastman House Still Photograph Archive

“Why, I ask you
earnestly, need we go on making
commonplace little exposures that may
be sorted into groups of landscapes,
portraits and figure studies? Think of
the joy of doing something which it
would be impossible to tell which was
top and which was the bottom!… I do
not think we have begun even to
realize the possibilities of the
camera.“

                                                                                                     


                                                                                                                  
from
Alvin Langdon Coburn



   
There are many resources on the net for Alvin
Langdon Coburn,

 but a good place to start is:



Alvin Langdon Coburn

at the  George
Eastman House Still Photograph Archive

135
Selected Images
http://www.geh.org/fm/COBURN/alcoburn/coburn_sum00001.html



___________________________



and the New York Public Library
has a
Men of Mark series:


Flashpoint Magazine: a Journal of
the Arts and Politics – Issue #17