Alma Lavenson

tipped to a mount, signed and titled twice and annotated and dated in pencil and ink, and with a number stamp and numerical notation in blue crayon on the reverse, 1931

Estate of the photographer

Susan Ehrens, Piedmont, California, as agent, 1997

Susan Ehrens, Alma Lavenson: Photographs (Berkeley, 1990), p. 16 (variant cropping)

Camera Craft, San Francisco, April 1931, Vol. 38, No. 4, p. 187 (second prize, advanced competition)

Louis William Fox, 'Alma Lavenson–The Spirit of Place,' Artweek, February 1979, Vol. 10, No. 7, p. 11

This striking early print, on matte-surface paper, is in generally excellent condition. The corners are slightly rounded. The reverse is appropriately age-darkened, and there are 3 brown paper remnants, likely from a prior mounting.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The image offered here was made a year after Alma Lavenson's first encounters with Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham, who by the later 1920s were proponents of the 'straight' style of photography—sharply-focused, clearly-defined, and with precise attention to surface detail. The self-taught Lavenson had begun photographing in 1919 in the then-fashionable Pictorialist style, but by 1931 had adopted the new, more objective approach to the medium. 

Although not an official member of Group f.64, whose members included Ansel Adams, Cunningham, and Weston, Lavenson was invited to be a part of their pioneering exhibition at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco in 1932.

According to Lavenson authority Susan Ehrens, the print offered here is one of only two prints of the image extant. The other print was sold in these rooms in 2007, in the sale of Photographs from the Private Collection of Margaret W. Weston.