Alvin Langdon Coburn British and American, b. United States, 1882-1966 Born in Boston and later naturalized a British citizen, Alvin Langdon Coburn received his first camera at age eight. Ten years later, encouraged by his cousin -- the idiosyncratic, yet highly talented photographer F. Holland Day-Coburn showed his work in a major London exhibition. In 1902-3 he was a founding member of the Photo-Secession and the Linked Ring, two of the most important photographic organizations of their time. His work in the medium continued at a high level for the next quarter century. Coburn was influenced not only by Day, but also by painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler, the impressionists, and Japanese woodblock prints, championed by his teacher Arthur Wesley Dow and Boston scholar Ernest Fenellosa. His artistic background allowed him to accept modernism as well. Although a founding member of the Pictorial Photographers of America in 1916 with Gertrude Käsebier and Clarence H. White, the following year Coburn made some of the first abstract photographs as a part of the vorticist movement, through which he became associated with Wyndham Lewis and Ezra Pound. Coburn produced a wide range of work, both in subject and style. Technically proficient, he excelled at the gravure process, producing large editions of original prints for portfolios and books. Among his collaborators were Henry James and H. G. Wells. Although Coburn abandoned photography from the mid-1920s to the mid-1950s, his work continued to be influential, and he took up the medium again near the end of his life. T.W.F. Note: Coburn emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1912 and became a naturalized British citizen in 1932. Coburn was a founding member of the Photo Secession, New York City, in 1902, and of the Pictorial Photographers of America in 1916. Coburn was associated with the Linked Ring in 1903, and the Royal Photographic Society in the United Kingdom. American photographer, became a naturalized British citizen. -Barbara Tannenbaum

David Octavius Hill British, b. Scotland, 1802-1870; and Robert Adamson British, b. Scotland, 1821-1848 Brought together out of necessity, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson proved to be collaborators whose work was as inspired as its impact has been long lasting. Hill was born in Perth to a family in the printing and publishing business. Trained as a painter, an occupation pursued throughout his life, Hill also was an illustrator and lithographer. His earliest work, Sketches of Scenery in Perthshire Drawn from Nature and on Stone (1821), published before he was 20, was one of the first in Britain to employ the new medium of lithography. In 1829 he helped found the Royal Scottish Academy, serving as secretary from 1830-70. Hill turned to photography as an aid for a large group portrait of the 474 ministers who formed the new Free Church of Scotland. Noting the difficulties of such a monumental task, photographic pioneer Sir David Brewster, an associate of William Henry Fox Talbot, introduced Hill to Robert Adamson (born in Brunswick). Trained as an engineer, Adamson had learned the technique of photography from his brother John, whom Brewster had taught. The portraits necessary for Hill's work were the beginning of their collaboration, the two working in Adamson's Edinburgh studio in 1843. Hill is generally thought to be the artistic mind behind their images, while Adamson served as the technician responsible for the camera. This opinion among scholars, however, is shifting toward greater recognition of Adamson's artistic skill. After Adamson's early death in 1848, Hill stopped working entirely for 10 years before continuing in collaboration with A. McGlashan of Glasgow at a considerably diminished level. The portraits by Hill and Adamson are known for their painterly, Old Master quality and exceptional use of light and shadow. Other images include architecture, landscape, and a series on the small fishing village of Newhaven. T.W.F.

George Davison British, 1856-1930 George Davison is known as the founder of impressionistic photography, a movement he initiated in 1890 as an extension of the naturalistic theories of Peter Henry Emerson. This, however, infuriated Emerson, who subsequently renounced earlier statements regarding photography as art. Davison was an amateur who had been an audit clerk at the English Treasury before going to work in 1897 for Kodak, Ltd., where he became managing director and a board member. In 1913 he was forced out as a consequence of his strong Christian Socialist convictions. He used his personal wealth (gained from early purchase of Kodak stock) for altruistic purposes organizing weekend seminars to teach workers about socialism and, during World War II, providing a home in northern Wales for children from London's East End. Early on, Davison worked in a straightforward photographic manner (Kodak used several of his photographs in their advertisements), but after 1890 he also began to produce impressionistic images in a more pictorial style. He joined the London Camera Club in 1885, serving as secretary in 1886, and was also affiliated with the Royal Photographic Society and was a founding member of the Linked Ring. From 1888-1914 Davison exhibited his work in Europe and the United States. He died at his winter home in Antibes. T.W.F.

Marshall R. Kernochan American, active 1900s Marshall Kernochan was a pictorial photographer active in New York during the early 20th century. He joined the Camera Club of New York in 1900 and the following year took part in the members exhibition at the club. He also belonged to the Photo-Secession and participated in the group's 1904 exhibition, A Collection of American Pictorial Photographs, at the Art Galleries of the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. The next year he was included in a show of members' work at Alfred Stieglitz's gallery "291" in New York and in 1910 exhibited his photographs in the important International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography organized by Stieglitz for the Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo. Stieglitz also reproduced one of Kernochan's images in the October 1909 issue of Camera Work. M.M.

Paul B. Haviland French, 1880-1950 During the years 1908-15, Paul Burty Haviland was a close associate of Alfred Stieglitz and a strong supporter of the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, popularly known as "291." A collector, photographer, businessman, and writer, Haviland was born and raised in Paris, the son of the china manufacturer Charles Haviland, and grandson of art critic and collector Philippe Burty. Following his graduation from Harvard University in 1901, Haviland joined the family business, serving as the New York representative of Haviland & Company of Limoges. After visiting "291" in 1908, he became an enthusiastic supporter of Stieglitz and the ideals of the Photo-Secession. In 1909 he began contributing articles to Camera Work and by 1910 was serving as the journal's assistant editor. Haviland's close association with Stieglitz and "291" stimulated his artistic talent and prompted him to begin seriously experimenting with photography. From 1908-15 he produced a number of photographic portraits, figure studies, and city views. His images appeared in several issues of Camera Work (1909, 1912, 1914), and in 1910 he took part in the important exhibition of pictorial photography at the Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo. Returning to France in 1915, Haviland was preoccupied with business concerns, finding little opportunity for art. Later in life, however, he did pursue photographic portraiture for a time. M.M.

David Octavius Hill British, b. Scotland, 1802-1870; and Robert Adamson British, b. Scotland, 1821-1848 Brought together out of necessity, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson proved to be collaborators whose work was as inspired as its impact has been long lasting. Hill was born in Perth to a family in the printing and publishing business. Trained as a painter, an occupation pursued throughout his life, Hill also was an illustrator and lithographer. His earliest work, Sketches of Scenery in Perthshire Drawn from Nature and on Stone (1821), published before he was 20, was one of the first in Britain to employ the new medium of lithography. In 1829 he helped found the Royal Scottish Academy, serving as secretary from 1830-70. Hill turned to photography as an aid for a large group portrait of the 474 ministers who formed the new Free Church of Scotland. Noting the difficulties of such a monumental task, photographic pioneer Sir David Brewster, an associate of William Henry Fox Talbot, introduced Hill to Robert Adamson (born in Brunswick). Trained as an engineer, Adamson had learned the technique of photography from his brother John, whom Brewster had taught. The portraits necessary for Hill's work were the beginning of their collaboration, the two working in Adamson's Edinburgh studio in 1843. Hill is generally thought to be the artistic mind behind their images, while Adamson served as the technician responsible for the camera. This opinion among scholars, however, is shifting toward greater recognition of Adamson's artistic skill. After Adamson's early death in 1848, Hill stopped working entirely for 10 years before continuing in collaboration with A. McGlashan of Glasgow at a considerably diminished level. The portraits by Hill and Adamson are known for their painterly, Old Master quality and exceptional use of light and shadow. Other images include architecture, landscape, and a series on the small fishing village of Newhaven. T.W.F.