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firm active: 1907-1921 minneapolis, minnesota :: chicago, illinois |
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Exhibitions
Second Cornell Exhibition
Purcell, Feick and Elmslie
Ithaca, New York 1912
Virtual Exhibition: Images of surviving plates
The exhibit set appears to have been a group of twelve plates.
The original plates have long since vanished. Fortunately, however, Purcell photographed them at the time they were made; what remains of the body of those photographs are shown here, perhaps all of them. The images are actually now dispersed in their respective job folders. This exhibition was for his alma mater, thus great attention was paid to presentation and graphic values. The surviving images are almost all very tiny (perhaps a 2 inches by 4 inches, at best, in most cases. Some are even smaller, as they were produced for thumbnail reference prints. A few glass negatives of the original photography remain, and could be used to produce better quality images. The writing that appears on some of the images below is by Frederick A. Strauel, noted as he worked with the Purcell and Elmslie Archives alongside John Jager, Purcell's longtime friend and first curator of the materials, during the 1950s.
Purcell was extremely finicky about how the firm was presented in publication, as he wanted to control all aspects of graphic design concerning the presentation of his work. How like an architect! Here, in these plates, he was limited only by brevity of words, and his designs for these plates indicate strongly the organic principles applied to such display.
The following images are available from the UMedia Digital Archive at the University of Minnesota Libraries.
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H.P. Gallaher residence Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota 1909 |
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Stewart Memorial Church Minneapolis, Minnesota 1909 |
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E. L. Powers residence Minneapolis, Minnesota 1910 |
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Exchange State Bank Grand Meadow, Minnesota 1910 |
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First National Bank Rhinelander, Wisconsin 1910 |
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First National Bank Rhinelander, Wisconsin 1910 |
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A. B. C. Dodd residence Charles City, Iowa 1910 |
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A. B. C. Dodd residence Charles City, Iowa 1910 |
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Edison Shop Chicago, Illinois 1912 |
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Edison Shop Chicago, Illinois 1912 |
research courtesy mark hammons