Stunning Vintage Original Photograph of Mojave Desert by Arion Putnam

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Seller: midcenturyart2 ✉️ (661) 97.6%, Location: Alhambra, California, US, Ships to: US & many other countries, Item: 222727271160 Stunning Vintage Original Photograph of Mojave Desert by Arion Putnam .

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Arion Putnam

(1870-1949)

Important Early California Photographer

(Biography Below)

 Important Historical Photograph

“Wild Flowers, Mojave Desert”

7 3/8" x 8 3/8"

Circa 1920

Titled in Pencil on Reverse by Photographer

Original Photograph

From

Early California Artist’s Collection

Printed by the Photographer for Him

Stamped on the Reverse:

Putnam Studios

Commercial Photographers

417 East 8th Street

Los Angeles, Calif. VA. 7749  

Putnam Negative #9865

Shipping:

Packed in Stiff Cardboard w. Foam Insulation Priority Mail Insured for $20

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Notes on This Collection of Photographs :

 These photographs were taken by the Early California Photographer Arion Putnam (1870-1949).   His work is quite rare on the market and prized by collectors of California photography.   They come from the personal collection of an Early California plein-air and portrait painter.   These photographs were personally printed by Arion Putnam for his friend whom he traveled with on painting trips throughout California and the Southwest.  

Some of these were once mounted in scrapbooks, which we have tried to note while others were printed as full-size 8” x 10” photographic prints with margins.  Others were printed in custom sizes and never mounted in any way.  The scrapbook images are mostly about the same size as an 8” x 10” photo without the margin, while others were printed in a custom size.  Almost all of them are titled on the reverse side along with the number of Putnam’s negative.  The earliest images of the California missions were probably shot about the turn of the century based on Putnam’s exhibition record, while the other photographs would have been shot in the 1910s and 1920s. 

Arion Putnam

Early California Photographer, Painter & Photographic Entrepreneur

  Arion Putnam (1870-1949) was an important California and Southwestern photographer, a California Plein-Air painter and a photographic entrepreneur.   He was active as a barnstorming Western photographer for more than fifty years, from about 1890 into the 1940s.   Putnam documented the Western American landscape from California’s Mojave Desert to the Grand Canyon to Yellowstone Park.    Putnam was known for his landscape photography but he also took many photographs of Native American subjects after the turn of the century.

  Arion Putnam was born in New York City on July 11, 1870.   He was the son of John R. Putnam (1936-1913) and Ellen Putnam.   Not much is known about his early life, but he seems to have developed an interest in both painting and photography when he was still young.  

  Arion Putnam studied photography at the Chautauqua School of Photography in New York. Founded in 1886, Chautauqua was one of the country’s first specialized schools that offered formal instruction in photography.   Dr. Charles Ehrmann (b. 1822, an employee of the Scovill Manufacturing Company, ran the school and served as its chief instructor.   The Chautauqua School operated out of offices and classrooms in New York City and claimed to be the largest photography school in the world at the time Arion Putnam studied there.   Many of the Chautauqua School’s 150 or so students were women and a number of them were only in their teenage years.   While many of the students remained amateur photographers, others went on to be significant professional photographers and to open their own studios.   Arion Putnam was part of Chautauqua’s 1888-1889 graduating class.  

  Arion Putnam is thought to have moved to Los Angeles about 1889, about the time his family settled in the Southland.   Just when his father, John R. Putnam (1836-1913), became interested in photography is unknown, so there is a question as to whether his interest predated his son’s, or whether the son was actually the first and primary photographer in the family.   John Putnam is listed in the Los Angeles City Directory as a photographer in 1891.   We know that Arion was active in photographing the California landscape in that same time frame.   Arion Putnam was the official photographer for the Southern Pacific Railway, which would have been an important appointment at that time and which would have enabled him to traverse the West on its railroad network.  

  The two Putnams opened their first commercial studio, Putnam Commercial Photographers, in 1895, but in 1901, they became partners in an expanded business with an amateur photographer named Carlton O. Valentine (1871-1870).   Valentine was one of the founding members of the Los Angeles Camera Club and his wife Hattie was also a photographer.   Before going into the photography business Valentine had been a law clerk, bookkeeper and an employee of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.  

The new firm of Putnam & Valentine were landscape photographers who took photographs for that were used in brochures and magazines and that they printed for sale in stores and shops in locations that were popular with tourists, including the National Parks, the California State Parks as well as gift shops in the California Missions.  Putnam & Valentine printed stereo cards as well as photographic post cards, which became increasingly popular with tourists at the turn of the twentieth century.   Putnam & Valentine’s photographic studio was located in the Temple Block in downtown Los Angeles, where many prominent Los Angeles artists and photographers had their studios. 

  On October 21, 1903 Arion Putnam married Rose Eberhart (1878-1960), who was a Los Angeles painter.   Their only child, Ralph Putnam (1905 – 1955) was born a few years later.    Like his wife, Arion Putnam was also an artist, but virtually nothing is known about when his artistic interest developed, nor what artistic training he may have had.   He was active with the Painter’s Club (1906-1909), which was the precursor to the California Art Club and then became one of the earliest members of the California Art Club, which held some of its meetings in the Putnam and Valentine studio.   Putnam exhibited his work in the annual exhibitions of the California Art Club from 1912 until 1919.   He also sent his work to exhibitions with the San Francisco Art Association and the California Liberty Fair during the First World War.   Putnam’s only recorded solo exhibition was held at the Mojonier Studio in Hollywood in 1919.   This exhibition, held at a fellow photographer’s studio included paintings of Zion National Park and local Southland subjects that included Santa Susana Pass, San Dimas, Laguna Beach, Topanga Canyon and San Juan Capistrano.

  Arion Putnam was a commercial photographer with an artistic inclination rather than a camera pictorialist or an artistic photographer such as Ed Weston or Ansel Adams.   Nevertheless, he did exhibit his photographs in photographic exhibitions from time to time, including the large Los Angeles Photographic Exhibition of 1902.   At the LAPE two of his photographs were given first and second place awards in the Architectural Class for photographs titled “Ruins of Capistrano” and “Capistrano Moonlight.”   He also was award third place in the landscape category for an image titled “In the Grand Canyon.”   This exhibition was covered in the historic photographic magazine Camera Craft and some of Putnam’s photographs were reproduced along with the article.

  Putnam & Valentine photographs were used to illustrate some of the early issues of the California Automobile Club’s Touring Topics Magazine, dating from 1909 to 1914.    John R. Putnam died in 1913; about the time the family photographic business was expanding.   It seems doubtful that much of the expansive library of photographic images of the Western landscape that Putnam & Valentine assembled over the years was taken by John Putnam, who was already well along in his life by the time the business was founded.

  In 1914, Putnam & Valentine moved to the Aristo Building on South Los Angeles Street and their expansive new was photographed for Touring Topics in 1914.    They also opened smaller camera stores and branch studios in a number of California locations that were popular with tourists.   These included a studio in Pine Knot, on Big Bear Lake, another shop in the unincorporated San Bernardino mountain community of Fawn Skin a gift shop and camera store in Lake Arrowhead.   These stores sold photographic supplies from Eastman Kodak and later Agfa, as well as copies of the Putnam & Valentine catalog of landscape photographs, photographic prints and photographic postcards.  

  Putnam & Valentine also opened a branch studio and camera store in Lake Tahoe, where Carlton Valentine spent each summer.   About 1920, the Putnam & Valentine business was dissolved, when Valentine seems to have then entered into a business relationship with his father-in-law.   Valentine remained in Lake Tahoe for some time, where he operated a summer resort.   Valentine passed away in Costa Mesa in 1970.   In 1922, Arion Putnam took photographs for a special expedition to Death Valley and the Mojave Desert in California and Nevada organized by Pacific Mutual News, which relied on two specially equipped Franklin automobiles, as Franklin helped sponsor the expedition.

  After separating from Valentine, Putnam continued in the photography business, operating under the name of Putnam Studios, an enterprise that his son Ralph seems to have later joined him in.   The three Putnams lived in a large, comfortable home in the hills of Eagle Rock, which was probably built for the family in 1911.   Arion Putnam kept operating Putnam studios until his death in 1949, after which his son took over the business, which was closed upon Ralph Putnam’s early death in 1955.    Rose Eberhart Putnam outlived both her husband and her son, passing away in 1960.   A commercial photographer named Al Green later acquired the inventory of Putnam Studios, which was subsequently donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.    (Copyright 2017, Jeffrey Morseburg, Not to be reproduced without express permission .)

  The Museum of Natural History has an extensive collection of the Putnam Studio and Putnam & Valentine studio’s negatives, prints and ephemera.   The J.P. Getty Museum and the Huntington Library also have holdings of Putnam and Putnam & Valentine Photographs.  

  Arion Putnam’s Exhibition Record from Edan Hughes: Painters Club (Los Angeles), 1909; San Francisco Art Assocition, 1912; Californis Art Club, 1912-19; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1916; California Liberty Fair, 1918; YWCA (LA), 1919; Eagle Rock Artists, 1929, 1932.

 

 

  • Condition: Very Good Condition. Matte Finish Print Made by Photographer for an Artist's Collection. Stored in a portfolio. Title Inscribed on Reverse of Photo in Pencil. No Margins. 6 3/8" x 8 3/8"
  • Signed?: Signed
  • Original/Reprint: Original Print
  • Color Type: Black & White
  • Artist: Arion Putnam
  • Size: Small (up to 12in.)
  • Subject: Landscape
  • Width (Inches): 8 3/8"
  • Height (Inches): 7 3/8"
  • Framed/Unframed: Unframed
  • Date of Creation: 1900-1949
  • Listed By: Dealer or Reseller
  • Photo Type: Gelatin Silver
  • Region of Origin: United States
  • Originality: Original
  • Color: Black
  • Style: Americana

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