May 27, 2021 - Sale 2570

Sale 2570 - Lot 2

Price Realized: $ 5,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
EDWIN HALE LINCOLN (1848-1938)
A suite of 14 delicate botanical studies from Wild Flowers of New England. Platinum prints, the images measuring 9 1/4x7 1/4 inches (23.5x18.4 cm.), the deckle-edged sheets 15x13 inches (38.1x33 cm.), each with a printed number and caption, in English and in Latin, on recto; each print in a custom frame, with a Richard York Gallery label on the reverse. 1914

Additional Details

Edwin Hale Lincoln moved to the Berkshire area in 1893, less than 10 years after taking up photography. He had previously been a drummer boy during the Civil War and a page in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, but now largely made his living photographing large yachts and estates, as well as the burgeoning Berkshire "summer cottages."

Lincoln's spare aesthetic contrasted with the Photo-Secessionist's concurrent embrace of Pictorialism, and instead his clean images can be seen within the context of the American Arts & Crafts movement (his work was published in Gustav Stickley's The Craftsman, where they received warm praise). In many ways a precursor to later, "straight" landscape photography prominent on the West Coast, Lincoln's quiet botanical studies both elevate his subject matter as well as elegantly reveal the plants' detailed, quiet complexities.

Lincoln began working on this series in the early 1890s and finished it in 1914. He printed the photographs and produced sets for subscribers.