W.H. GUEBHARD | ALLÉE OF TREES BORDERING THE GAVE RIVER

Beaussant Lefèvre, Paris, 1 June 1990, Lot 37

Very little is known about the biography of the photographer who signed his images ‘W. H. G.’. A one-time student of Gustave Le Gray (see lots 109 and 124), W. H. Guebhard photographed landscapes in a manner reflecting a taste for formalism. In the present image, the Gave de Pau river is bordered by an orderly row of trees, the composition adhering to the rule of thirds. A similar photograph by Guebhard in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, depicts a grand alleé, nearly mirroring the present composition. In that photograph the placid stream is replaced by a wide gravel path but the elements of the composition remain the same.

This photograph was acquired from the 1990 sale of The W. H. G. Collection, an auction of 91 early French photographs, including 34 prints by the 'phantom' talent W. H. G.