Alvin Langdon Coburn (June 11, 1882 – November 23, 1966) was an early 20th-century photographer who became a key figure in the development of American pictorialism.

In his autobiography, Coburn wrote: "My mother was a remarkable woman of very strong character who tried to dominate my life…It was a battle royal all the days of our life together.

He immediately fell in love with the camera, and within a few years he had developed a remarkable talent for both visual composition and technical proficiency in the darkroom.

He opened a photography studio on Fifth Avenue but spent much of his time that year studying with Arthur Wesley Dow at his School of Art in Massachusetts.

Stieglitz once told an interviewer, "Fannie Coburn devoted much energy trying to convince both Day and me that Alvin was a greater photographer than Steichen.

"[2] The following year Coburn was elected as an Associate of The Linked Ring, making him one of the youngest members of that group and one of only a few Americans to be so honored.

In 1904 Coburn returned to London with a commission from The Metropolitan Magazine to photograph England's leading artists and writers, including G. K. Chesterton, George Meredith, and H. G. Wells.

It was during this time that Coburn made one of his most famous portraits, that of George Bernard Shaw posing nude as Rodin's The Thinker.

In the summer he cruised round the Mediterranean and traveled to Paris, Rome and Venice in the fall while working on frontispieces for an American edition of Henry James' novels.

By 1907 Coburn was so well established in his career that Shaw called him "the greatest photographer in the world," although he was only 24 years old at the time.

In the same issue there was an anonymous article that leveled some harsh words at him: Coburn has been a favored child throughout his career… No other photographer has been so extensively exploited nor so generally eulogized.

Soon afterwards he wrote to Stieglitz: "Printing almost entirely in gray now... think it a reaction from the autochromes.…"[3] In the summer he visited Dublin, where he made portraits of W. B. Yeats and George Moore.

Back in London, Coburn bought a new home with a large studio area where he set up two printing presses.

He proceeded to use the skills he had learned at the County Council School to publish a book of his own photographs called London.

He began traveling extensively in the U.S. for the next year, going to Arizona to photograph the Grand Canyon and to California to take photos in Yosemite National Park.

[9]In 1915 Coburn organized the exhibition Old Masters of Photography, shown at the Royal Photographic Society in London and at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in the U.S.

Its new visual aesthetics intrigued Coburn and, provoked by his growing spiritual quest, he began to re-examine his photographic style.

He responded by making a bold and distinctive portrait of Pound, showing three overlapping images of differing sizes.

In 1922 Coburn briefly returned to his roots when he published More Men of Mark,[11] a second book of portraits he had taken more than 10 years earlier.

The identity of the man – described as being great and good in every way – was known to Coburn, but it has been kept from anyone outside of the Order due to the Society's strict doctrine of anonymity.

"[5] Throughout the 1920s and '30s Coburn became fully committed to the beliefs of the Universal Order, which are described in The Shrine of Wisdom magazine as being devoted to "Synthetic Philosophy, Religion and Mysticism".

He presented numerous lectures based on his findings to Masonic gatherings, travelling extensively throughout England and Wales.

Ironically, just when he was making an almost complete break from photography Coburn was elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.