ARTHUR ELLIOTT - A Memoir of the Man and the Story of his Photographic Collection

Hardcover, 56 pages plus Photo Section. 

Very good condition. Offsetting on title page. Tightly bound.  

This small book by Conrad Lighton tells his story. Published in 1956, nearly 20 years after his death, it introduces a marvelous selection of Elliott's black and white Cape studies (there are 30 plates). Elliott made his name as a South African photographer over the period 1900 to 1938. His strength was architectural studies and the details of the Cape Dutch style. He was the photographer who opened people's eyes to the specific... gables, bell towers, moulded pediments, fan lights, doorways and so aroused interest in the distinctiveness of Cape homesteads and the Cape Dutch heritage. The romantic dreamy images had viewers of his work falling for his photography but his legacy was to encourage, through the camera eye, the appreciation of the quiet beauty of a style that was traditional, dated and disappearing. His photographic work made a contribution to heritage appreciation and preservation. He lived in a time when photography was technically difficult, required an artist's eye and enormous patience to get the match and mix of light and shadow right. A master photographer is one who helps us to see the familiar with fresh insights, and as Lighton says because of Elliott, he (Lighton) never took this heritage for granted again. It was Elliott's belief that people should read a photograph as they read a book and his exhibitions of hundreds of photographs must have had a powerful impact.