Charles Holme – { feuilleton }

Portrait of Jessie M. King by J. Craig Annan (autochrome).

I don’t recall having seen a photo of artist Jessie M. King prior to this so it’s an additional surprise to find one in colour. All these examples are from Colour Photography: and other recent developments of the art of the camera (1908), one of the many books edited by Charles Holme from features in The Studio magazine. Needless to say, not all the entries are colour but a number of the monochrome plates have their own qualities, such as that painterly effect which so many early photographers were eager to cultivate. Anyone familiar with Gertrude Käsebier’s very painterly The Crystal Gazer, famous for its appearance on the cover of a Cocteau Twins sleeve, may like to know that two more portraits by Ms Käsebier are included in Holme’s selection. For a look at more recent attempts to match the effects of painting with the camera, see this piece by Rick Poynor about the remarkable work of Saul Leiter.

A Tangle After a Storm by Walter Bennington.

A Late Winter Sun by Dr. H. Bachmann (gum print).

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Endpaper design by Reginald L Knowles for JM Dent’s Everyman’s Library series.

A few of the many illustration samples to be found in The Art of the Book, an overview of book design published in 1914. The editor was Charles Holme, also the editor of leading art magazine The Studio from whose contents and resources books such as this were easily compiled. The Internet Archive has a collection of Holme’s books, and this particular volume includes work from Hungary and Sweden, two countries which are often overlooked in creative surveys. I’ve selected illustrations here but the book contains many examples of binding design and page layouts.

Initial letters and ornaments by Friedrich Wilhelm Kleukens.

Continue reading “The Art of the Book”