Clarence Hudson White (1871-1925)
Clarence Hudson White (1871-1925)

Blind Man's Buff, 1898

Details
Clarence Hudson White (1871-1925)
Blind Man's Buff, 1898
platinum print
signed in pencil (mount, recto)
image/sheet: 7 3/8 x 5 1/8 in. (18.8 x 13.1 cm.)
mount: 10 1/2 x 8 1/4 in. (27.3 x 21 cm.)
Provenance
Alfred A. Cohn;
By descent to son-in-law Jeremy Stowall, Prescott, Arizona;
with Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York;
Private Collection;
with Gitterman Gallery, New York;
Katrina Doerner Photographs, New York, 2011.
Literature
Paul L. Anderson, The Fine Art of Photography, J.B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, 1919, p. 142.
Maynard White, The Aperture History of Photography Series, Aperture, Millerton, 1979, p. 69.

Lot Essay

Clarence Hudson White grew up in rural Ohio in the last decades of the 19th century. He discovered photography after visiting the 1893 World Expo, in Chicago, and taught himself the basics of the medium. His pictorialist images were steeped in the romanticism and sentimentality of the age, and ultimately brought him a great deal of international attention. Through his friendship with Stieglitz, established at the turn of the century, he became one of the founding members of the Photo-Secession.

His photographs were known for portraying common, everyday scenes—domestic still lifes, a moment spent reading a book next to a sunlit window, or children playing. This photograph shows a young girl playing 'blind man’s buff' (or 'bluff'), a variant of the game of tag, during which the player who is 'it' is blindfolded and tries to catch other children as they call her name.

Other copies of platinum prints in this exact size reside in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art and the Royal Photographic Society collection at the National Media Library.

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