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(GILMAN COLLECTION) Photographs from the Collection of the Gilman Paper Company. A stunning volume, presenting two hundred images from one of the world's most important photography collections. Curated by Pierre Apraxine, with plates by Richard Benson, and notes to the plates by Lee Marks. The scope ranges from the experimental daguerreotypes of the early 1840s to the pioneering photographs by Robert Frank and Diane Arbus of the mid twentieth century. Illustrated with 199 offset lithographs after photographs, and an offset lithographic frontispiece. Folio, publisher's ½ maroon calf and linen covered boards, publisher's slipcase; in the original shipping box. ONE OF 1200 COPIES, THIS NUMBER 689. [Verona]: Stamperia Valdonega for the White Oak Press, 1985
Provenance: From the Estate of Pierre Apraxine, New York
Born in Estonia as a member of an exiled noble Russian family and educated in Belgium, Pierre Apraxine came to the United States in 1970 as a Fulbright Scholar to work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He was educated in classical draftsmanship and was largely self-taught as a student of photography. From 1976 to 2007 Mr. Apraxine was the art curator for the Gilman Paper Company headed by the late Howard Gilman. There he assembled several collections of contemporary paintings and sculptures, visionary architectural drawings (now at the Museum of Modern Art), and photographs.
The photography was acquired as the market was forming, a time of heady newness and excitement. The more than 8,500 works in the collection came to tell the history of the medium as well as the history of industrialization and modernization, a remarkable alchemy of timing and a unique way of looking that remains unparalleled.
In 1993 the collection of photographs was shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a landmark exhibition: "The Waking Dream: Photography's First Century" (the museum then acquired the collection in 2005). In 1994 he was the recipient with Maria Morris Hambourg of the International Center of Photography Writing Award for the catalogue.
Apraxine curated several exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum, authored additional important titles, and was the curator in charge of the installation of Gustave Le Gray at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.
