47. Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882 -1966) men of mark, 1913 Duckworth & Co, Mitchell Kennerley, London / New York, 1913. First edition, half-title, title, dedication leaf, list of plates, introduction by Coburn and 33 tipped-in monochrome photogravure plates, each with sitter's facsimile signature and guardleaf. Original publisher's linen-backed beige cloth boards with gilt title. Coburn's first book of portraits of the great and the good (it was followed some years later by More Men of Mark) features 33 portraits of artists, thinkers and writers such as George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Henry James (illust.), Rodin, Henri Matisse, Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, Frank Brangwyn, William Butler Yeats, Robert Bridges among others.
est. £3000 – £5000
‘I have not attempted to do anything startling or 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 record the elusive something that differentiates a man of talent from his fellows and makes life worth while, worth struggling with towards ever greater understanding’, p.30.
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