(Public Square - 1900) by John Henry Harper

(Public Square - 1900) by John Henry Harper

(Public Square - 1900)

John Henry Harper

Please call us at 707-546-7352 or email artannex@aol.com to purchase this item.
Title

(Public Square - 1900)

 
Artist
Year
1900  
Technique
platinum photograph 
Image Size
6 1/2 x 9 5/8" paper and image 
Signature
pencil, within image lower center 
Edition Size
 
Annotations
signed and dated within the image 
Reference
 
Paper
 
State
 
Publisher
 
Inventory ID
15157 
Price
$400.00 
Description

A tonal photograph of a public square in 1900 by John Henry Harper, about whom little can be found. He was allegedly a 19th century Boston photographer but this does not look like Copely Square or any Boston square we can find.

Despite a lack of information on the artist, this platinum print by Boston-based John Henry Harper is no less a masterpiece of early photographic arts. A gathering of onlookers appears to bear witness to a lecture or oration in a town square, whose surrounding elegant architecture suggests a prosperous metropolitan hub. Above the crowd looms heavy, dark rainclouds; beyond what appears to be a state building, an opening in the dreary weather allows for a shifting light to filter through; and just beyond that, the brightly illuminated, billowing form of a freshly passed - or approaching - wave in the storm. The commanding sense of depth and passage of time is wrought in a single fleeting moment, distilling with certainty the keen sense of composition of the artist and the power of photography in general.

 
Please call us at 707-546-7352 or email artannex@aol.com to purchase this item.