“The later years of his life were spent in that part of Manhattan, beyond Dyckman Street, known as Inwood. That section of the Island he very much loved, and many of his pictures were taken in or around those wooded heights overlooking Spuyten Duyvil. These pictures include a series of illustrations to Stephen Phillips' poem, ‘Marpessa.’
“It was in October, 1913, that Mr. Dickson published the first number of Platinum Print, ‘a journal of personal expression.’ Between that date and October, 1917, eleven numbers of this remarkable magazine were published, the last two under the title of Photo-Graphic Art.
“He was one of the founders in 1916 of the Pictorial Photographers of America and was secretary to that organization until 1920. In 1921 he completed the editing of the ‘Poems of the Dance,’ an anthology illustrated by his own photographs, which was published in the same year. At the time of his death he was at work on other projects, which would have been genuine contributions.
We have also been saddened by the death of Richard H. Rice, which occurred last February and cost the country one of its wisest industrial leaders. Becoming manager of the Lynn Works of the General Electric Company during a great strike, he had made them famous for productive cooperation. His methods have been generally copied; and the confidence and support of his twelve thousand workmen and women were due to his devotion and his inviolable sense of justice.
Photography was his refuge from pressing affairs. With the engineer's skill and interest in processes and a keen love of natural beauty, he produced during his last decade half a hundred landscape studies of a reticent and enduring beauty. The scant leisure of his last winter had been spent in preparing these for exhibition, and they remain as a characteristic memorial to an unusual personality.
In this book, our third Pictorial Annual, we offer the choice of our Jury from nearly a thousand prints, selected without regard to membership in the organization and solely with the intention of exhibiting the best that America can produce. We are grateful to all who have contributed, whether successfully or not, for their encouragement and support, often by letter as well as by entries; to the Jury of Selection for their careful, painstaking judgment; to our Committee on Publication for its detailed and arduous work; to our engravers and printers for their preparation and presentation of our material; to all, in fact, who have cooperated in making Pictorial Photography in America for 1922 a good record of current American Photographic Art.
Amasa Day Chaffee, President.
The Art Center
Sixty-five East Fifty-sixth Street,
New York City.
