Photographs from the Private Collection of Margaret W. Weston

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Lot 70
  • 70

William Dassonville 1879-1957

Estimate
7,000 - 10,000 USD
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Description

  • William Dassonville
  • 'SHIP DECK II'
warm-toned, on Dassonville Charcoal Black paper, numbered '354' in an unidentified hand in pencil in the margin, the photographer's estate stamp and numbered 'V1293' and '4215' in unidentified hands in pencil on the reverse, matted, circa 1925

Provenance

Paul M. Hertzmann, Inc., San Francisco

Acquired by Margaret W. Weston from the above, after 1999

Literature

Other prints of this image:

Peter Palmquist, Susan Herzig, and Paul Hertzmann, eds., Dassonville (Nevada City, 1999), pl. 35

Keith F. Davis, An American Century of Photography, from Dry-Plate to Digital:  The Hallmark Photographic Collection (Kansas City and New York, 1999), p. 196 

Catalogue Note

In the early 1920s, prompted by the war-time shortage of platinum, the photographer William Dassonville began experimenting with making his own photographic paper.  By 1924, he was selling his Dassonville Charcoal Black silver bromide paper commercially.  The warm-toned paper, which was nearly translucent and had a rough surface texture, was well-suited to the pictorial work of the day.  Ansel Adams used it extensively in his early career (see Lot 46), before opting for cooler-toned paper with a glossier finish.  The photograph by Dassonville offered here is perfectly rendered on his own paper.  While he was essentially a Pictorialist photographer, the dynamic composition shows a distinct Modernist influence.