All were in the original grey wrappers (though these were very often torn or detached) and contained between eight and a dozen photogravures and other reproductions after well-known photographers.
The very first issue of Camera Work, which focussed primarily on the work of Gertrude Käsebier, but also included a signed example after Alfred Steiglitz, was sold at $16,000 (£10,460), while issue No. 9, which included six signed photogravures after Clarence White, plus four by Eva Watson-Schütz and one example of the work of Edward Steichen, reached $9500 (£6210).
The Steichen Supplement itself, which offered a larger than usual number of 15 photogravures, made $8500 (£5555).
Issue No. 8, which sold for just $1300 (£850), came from the library of the Glasgow photographer J. Craig Allan, six of whose photographs were the main feature of an issue that also included single examples of work by Alvin Langdon Coburn and Frederick H. Evans.
More recent lots included one of 1000 copies of the 1967 Da Capo Press edition of Paul Strand’s Mexican Portfolio, containing 20 photogravures after Strand’s powerful portraits and village views – all loose as issued in a linen clamshell box. This copy was signed and inscribed by Strand to Bert and Edna Andersen, owners of the company that printed this edition, and it sold for $2800 (£1830).
Cameras at Work…
USA: The 200-lot literature section of a photograph sale held by Swanns on June 6 included a good run of the famous American publication, Camera Work, comprising Nos. 1 and 3-10 of the years 1903-05, plus the Steichen supplement of 1906.
