Pirkle Jones

signed and dated by the photographer in pencil on the reverse, matted, signed and dated by him in pencil on the mat, 1968 (Pirkle Jones: California Photographs, p. 92; Octave of Prayer, p. 56)

This photograph, toned with selenium, is generally in excellent condition. There is minor rippling in the paper, most noticeable at the edges, which does not affect the image. In raking light, there is a pencil-point indentation visible in the upper left quadrant which does not break the emulsion.
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Minor White selected this image by Pirkle Jones for the exhibition Octave of Prayer, held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where White was a professor, in 1972.  The invitation for submissions stated that the show's theme would raise 'a number of questions about the power of photography, an outgoing medium, to reveal inwardness and the realm of prayer.'  The invitation went on to ask, 'Can photography evoke the sense of prayer directly? Through symbol? Or some combination of both? What is the extent of space or octave of prayer?'

When Jones's waterfall image was chosen, White wrote to Jones to specifically request a large—18 inches tall—print of it, and called it 'one of the handsomest prints in the show.' When the print arrived in April 1972, White wrote that 'it makes the show!' and that 'it sends tingles up the spine.'  The book Octave of Prayer, illustrated with many images from the exhibition, including the one offered here, was published by Aperture in 1972.