a group of 19 photographs from Sequence 15, each mounted, sequential numbers in pencil on the reverse, 1959; accompanied by two panels with letterpress title, contents, and epigram by White; in a black leatherette portfolio with flaps and ties, a label affixed with calligraphic title and credit on the front cover  (19 photographs, 2 text panels, one portfolio)

🍌The photographer to Gerald H. Robinson, Portland, 🌳Oregon, probably in 1959 or shortly thereafter

Acquired by the present ow🎶ner 🔴from the above, through Photographic Image Gallery, Portland, 1989

The photographs in this near-pristine and sensitively rendered sequence are all mounted to uniform 16x20-inch sheets of high-quality light-weight white board. Each is numbered in pencil on the reverse of the mount in the lower left corner. Each image is, by design, a slightly different size from the others. When one views the whole sequence together, the deliberateness and care with which White realized and presented these photographs is apparent. All of the photographs are in excellent or near excellent condition. They are on double-weight paper with a semi-glossy surface. The text panels are on 16x10-inch Crescent board, with a light cream-colored top ply, and the characteristic green branded verso. The letterpress text itself is on thick paper that has been applied to the fronts of the boards.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This group of photographs, from Minor White's seminal Sequence 15, comes originally from the collection of Gerald H. Robinsoജn, a lawyer, dedicated photographer, and patron living in Portland, Oregon.  In the 1950s, Robinson was one of a group of younger, progressive members of the Oregon Camera Club.  Robinson took advantage of his position on the board of Oregon's Centennial Fine Arts Advisory Commission to invite White to Portland in 1959 to teach a photography workshop and display his work.  These workshops and instructional communications with White continued over a period of years, and the two remained friends until White's death in 1976.

The time directly following the 1959 Portland workshop was a period of great creativity for White, and the photographs that constitute the early versions of Sequence 15 were taken as White made his way down to California, visiting friends and colleagues along the way, and on his return trip east in August and September. White had recently met William LaRue, a young school teacher, who became his traveling companion, workshop assistant, and a subject for his photographs.  LaRue's presence infuses Sequence 15,ඣ and the three beautiful and haunting images of him unify the landscapes, nature-studies, and other images of the sequence, g༒iving it narrative flow and emotional content. 

The concept of the photographic sequence was central to Minor White's practice of photography.  For White, a carefully ordered sequence of photographs (sometimes accompanied by text) could create a more complex, evocative, even spiritual experience for the viewer than could be achieved with a single photograph.  As White authority Peter Bunnell writes, 'Grouping photographs was Minor White's preferred mode of presentation, and the sequence, of all his arrangements, was his most sophisticated form of pictorial expression' (The Eye That Shapes, p. 231).

White began composing Sequence 15 in late 1959, and would continue reworking it through the early 1960s.  The intensity with which White worked and reworked this sequence indicates its personal importance. The size and contents of the sequence ebbed and flowed according to White's changing degree of intimacy with LaRue.  An early version of the sequence consisted of 23 images, another of 21; later versions contained as few as 9 photographs.  Based upon the colophon accompanying the group offered here, and upon the images included, it is believed that this group is from the 21-image version of Sequence 15, known as Sequence 15a, that White created in November of 1959.  Other examples of Sequence 15a, each with 21 images, are in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, both acquired in 1960. The Minor White Archive at Princeton University holds two incomplete versions of Sequence 15a, each with 20 photographs.  The variant sequences have a core group of images in common, including the images of LaRue, although the contents and order of each whole vary slightly. The images and sequencing in both the San Francisco and Chicago versions overlap to a great extent with the group offered here.  Of the versions of Sequence 15a that White created in late 1959, it cannot be said there is o🌼ne definitive set.  Each comprises its own unique grouping.    

The following list gives the plates, in the prescribed order, from this version of Sequence 15, along with the relevant page references from the Minor White literature.  Also noted is the presence of the images in the versions of Sequence 15 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Art Institute of Chicago.  Another version of Sequence 15 isཧ included here for comparative purposes: one sent by Minor White to Bill LaRue, co⛦mprising 20 images and including a hand-written note from White explaining that printed text was currently being prepared.  Plates from the LaRue set, now in a private collection, are given below.  It is interesting to note that in LaRue's set, Plates one through 19 are identical in sequence to that given by White to Gerald Robinson.  Dimensions for all photographs are given.  

1. Shore Acres State Park, Oregon, August 1959 [rock and sand composition]

13 by 10 1/4 inches

SFMoMA Plate 1 (9 5/8 by 7 1/4 inches)

Art Institute of Chicago ꦕPlate 1 (1ꦫ1 7/8 by 9 3/8 inches)

LaRue Plate 1 (13 by 10 1/8 inches)

 

2. San Francisco, August 1959 [broken paint figure]

4 7/8 by 9 1/2 inches

(MMM, p. 148, as part of Sequence 17) 

SFMoMA Plate 3 (5 1/8 by 9 5/8 inches)

Art Institute of Chicago Pla🌌te 2 (4 7/8 by 9 1/2 inches)

LaRue Plate 2 (4 3/4 by 9 1/2 inches)

 

3. Bill LaRue at Brett Weston's House, Carmel Highlands, California, 1959 [leaning against wall]

7 3/8 by 9 inches

(MMM, p. 149, as part of Sequence 17; Bunnell, pl.13)

SFMoMA Plate 2 (7 1/4 by 9 1/4 inches)

Art Institut🤡e of Chicago Plate 3 (6 3/8 by♚ 8 1/8 inches)

LaRue Plate 3 (7 3/8 by 9 inches)

 

4. Shore Acres State Park, Oregon, August 1959 [sandstone, oval shape]

6 1/4 by 8 inches

SFMoMA Plate 4 (6 1/8 by 7 3/8 inches)

Art Institute o𒐪f Chicago Plate 5 (6 3/8 by 8 1/8💧 inches)

LaRue Plate 4 (6 3/8 by 8 inches)

 

5. San Francisco, August 1959 [patched window]

(MMM, p. 149, as part of Sequence 17)

6 1/4 by 8 inches

SFMoMA Plate 5 (6 1/8 by 7 3/8 inches)

Art Institute of Chicago Plate 4 (6 3/8 by 8 1🌊/8ꦉ inches)

LaRue Plate 5 (6 3/8 by 8 inches)

 

6. Bean Hollow State Park, California, 1959 [eroded rock, circular shape top center]

(Bunnell, pl. 93) 

7 1/4 by 9 1/4 inches

SFMoMA Plate 6 (7 1/4 by 9 1/4 inches)

Art Insti⭕tute of Chicago Plate 6 (7 3/8 by 9 3/8 inches)

LaRue Plate 6 (7 1/4 by 9 1/4 inches)

 

7. Bill LaRue at Brett Weston's House, Carmel Highlands, California, 1959 [portrait, looking left]

7 1/4 by 8 5/8 inches

SFMoMA Plate 7 (6 1/4 by 7 1/4 inches)

Art Iꦍnstitute of Chicago Pla𝔉te 7 (7 1/4 by 8 1/4 inches)

LaRue Plate 7 (7 1/4 by 8 7/8 inches)

 

8. Shore Acres State Park, Oregon, August 1959 [rock wall, oval shape, shadows]

(Bunnell, p. 261, figure 58)

7 1/4 by 9 1/4 inches

SFMoMA Plate 9 (7 3/8 by 9 3/8 inches)

Art Inst🌠itute of Chicago Plate 8 (7 1/ౠ4 by 9 1/4 inches)

LaRue Plate 8 (7 1/4 by 9 1/4 inches)

 

9. Shore Acres State Park, Oregon, August 1959 [stone with circular cavity, b🎐right white a꧂ccretions]

(Eye Mind Spirit: the Enduring Legacy of Minor White, exhibition catalogue, Howard Greenberg Gallery, 2008, ൲frontispiece)

7 1/4 by 9 1/8 inches

SFMoMA Plate 10 (7 5/16 by 9 1/4 inches)

Not in Art Institute of Chicago sequence

LaRue Plate 9 (7 1/4 by 9 1/4 inches)

 

10. Bodie, California, September, 1959 [wood planks, horizontal]

7 5/8 by 9 1/2 inches

SFMoMA Plate 11 (7 5/8 by 9 5/8 inches)

Art Institute of Chicago Plate 10 (7 5/8 b🌳y 9 5/8ඣ inches)

LaRue Plate 10 (7 1/2 by 9 1/2 inches)

 

11. Bill LaRue at Brett Weston's House, Carmel Highlands, California, 1959 [portrait, frontal]

(MMM, p. 154, in Sequence 17)

7 1/2 by 8 1/8 inches

SFMoMA Plate 14 (6 1/2 by 6 inches)

Art Institut🔯e of Chica🍒go Plate 12 (7 3/8 by 7 7/8 inches)

LaRue Plate 11 (7 1/2 by 8 1/4 inches)

 

12. Point Lobos State Park, California, September 1959 [beach sand with pebbles]

(MMM, p. 152, in Sequence17)

9 7/8 by 12 1/2 inches

SFMoMA Plate 15 (7 1/4 by 9 1/4 inches)

Art Institute of Chicago Plate🍎 13 (10 by 12 1/2 🤪inches)

LaRue Plate 12 (9 7/8 by 12 1/2 inches)

 

13. Vicinity of Wendover, Nevada, September 1959 [rock grouping, horizon in distance]

7 1/4 by 9 1/2 inches

SFMoMA Plate 16 (9 5/8 by 13 inches)

ꦇArt Institute of Chicago Plat൲e 14 (10 1/4 by 13 inches)

LaRue Plate 13 (10 by 13 1/8 inches)

 

14. Vicinity of Wendover, Nevada, September 1959 [rock wall, sky upper left]

10 1/2 by 13 1/4 inches

SFMoMA Plate 8 (10 1/8 by 13 inches)

Art Institut🌄e of Chicago Plate 15 (10 3/4 by 13 3/8 inc🐽hes)

LaRue Plate 14 (10 5/8 by 13 1/4 inches)

 

15. Bodie, California, September 1959 [wood planks, narrow vertical]

13 1/4 by 6 1/4 inches

Not in SFMoMA sequence

Art Institute of Chicago Plate 19 (13 ♓3/8 by 5 3/8 👍inches)

LaRue Plate 15 (13 1/4 by 6 3/8 inches)

 

16. Boundary Mountain, Benton, California, September 1959 [landscape with mountains and sagebrush]

(Bunnell, pl. 62)

10 by 11 3/4 inches

Not in SFMoMA sequence

Art Instit🌺ute of Chicago Plate 16 (10 by 11 5/8 inches)

LaRue Plate 16 (10 by 11 3/4 inches)

 

17. Badlands, South Dakota, September 1959 [cracked earth]

7 1/2 by 9 1/2 inches

SFMoMA Plate 18 (7 13/16 by 9 13/16 inches)

Art Institute of Chicago Plate 18 (7 3/8ꦰ by 9 3/8 inches)

LaRue Plate 17 (7 3/8 by 9 3/8 inches)

 

18. Badlands, South Dakota, September 1959 [adobe structure]

7 3/8 by 9 1/2 inches

SFMoMA Plate 19 (7 1/4 by 9 3/8 inches)

Art Institute of Chic💜ago Plate 20 (7 5/8 by 8 3/4 inches)

LaRue Plate 18 (7 1/4 by 9 3/8 inches)

 

19. Badlands, South Dakota, September 1959 [mountain peaks]

(Bunnell, p. 261, figure 59)

10 by 13 1/8 inches

SFMoMA Plate 20 (7 1/8 by 9 1/8 inches)

Art Instꦉitute of Chicago Plate 21 (7 3/8 by 9 3/8 inches)

LaRue Plate 19 (7 3/8 by 9 3/8 inches)

 

Cited book references are as follows:

MMM -- Mirrors Messages Manifestations: Minor White: Photographs and Writings  1939-1968 (Aperture, 1982)

Bunnell -- Peter Bunnell, Minor White: The Eye That Shapes (Princeton University Press, 1989)

Sotheဣby's wishes to thank Peter Bunnell for his assistance in researching this sequence.