Mesa Verde Platinum Print by Adam Clark Vroman

Lot description

Mesa Verde Platinum Print by Adam Clark Vroman A small (80x55mm) platinum print, loose mounted in a large cardboard mount (405x510mm), showing a view of the Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde, Colorado c1900.A complex of primitive stone houses in a cave like recess, constructed and inhabited 1200-1300. Photographer was Adam Clark Vroman, born in Illinois he moved to Pasadena in 1893 where he opened a photo supply store. His interest in photography grew and eventually led him to document indigenous people of Arizona and New Mexico. Producing The Pueblo of Zuni in 1901. Provenance: The John Randall Plummer Collection John Randall Plummer is a collector of photography whose interest in the medium began in 1973. Working in close collaboration with his associate, Harvey S. Shipley Miller, Plummer assembled an important and wide-ranging collection that reflected both scholarly depth and a refined aesthetic sensibility. The collection achieved international recognition in 1983 with the landmark exhibition Particulars: Selections from the Miller-Plummer Collection of Photography, organised by the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, New York. Curated by Robert A. Sobieszek, Director of Photographic Collections, the exhibition subsequently travelled to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Wellesley College Museum, further cementing the collection’s reputation. A publication accompanying the exhibition, also titled Particulars, was issued in 1983 and remains an important reference work, highlighting the intellectual and visual coherence of the collection. In October 2009, the Miller-Plummer Collection was dispersed at auction by Christie’s, New York, achieving a total just under $2 million—an indication of both its quality and the esteem in which it was held. Beyond his role as a collector, Plummer has been actively involved in the institutional world of art and photography. He has served as a trustee of the George Eastman House, the Museum of American Folk Art in New York, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, and The Fabric Workshop in Philadelphia. He was also a member of the Prints, Drawings and Photographs Acquisition Committee at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Today, works from the John Randall Plummer Collection reflect a sustained engagement with the history of photography. Fine print.