Think what it took to take a photograph in 1890. Imagine a big, cumbersome camera, and then all the necessary paraphernalia: the tripod, the heavy plates, the chemicals, the black shroud. Then, too, ...

In the early 20th century, as avant-garde painters broke with tradition by making their pictures abstract, Alvin Langdon Coburn set his sights on creating abstract photographs. At first he approached ...