Laura Gilpin was an alumna of the Clarence White School of Photography, an important training ground for a number of the 20th century’s most influential photographers. This catalogue includes the work of several other White School graduates, among them Margaret Bourke-White (Lots 33 and 45), Doris Ulmann (see Lot 67), Karl Struss (see Lots 71 and 72), and Dorothea Lange (see Lot 143). While each of these photographers would go on to create bodies of work that were distinctly individual, the one trait that united them all was a mastery of photographic craft. Gilpin was a not only a fine photographer but a gifted printer of her own work, which she realized in both silver and platinum.

Gilpin’s central subject was the American southwest, and she photographed both the landscape and its people. The photograph offered here, taken at Great Sand Dunes National Park in Gilpin’s home state of Colorado, is striking for its clarity. While the contours of the dunes provide a foundation for Gilpin’s minimal composition, the subtle textures that she so beautifully presents in the image—in the sand and in the clouds—give this photograph its complexity and depth.