Imitation, Influence... and Coincidence: online tour

  Welcome to the online tour of Imitation, Influence... and Coincidence, an exhibition developed by Covering Photography, currently on view at the Boston Public Library. The real world version is up through January 31st, 2009 in the BPL's Rare Books and Manuscripts exhibition space (the Boston Public Library is located at 700 Boylston St., Boston MA. Hours are Mon - Fri, 9 - 5)

  The purpose of this site is to take the viewer through the show, display by display, using photographs of the exhibition space and details of the books, covers, source images and accompanying text. The books are displayed in a total of 17 display cases (Note: The introductory text for this exhibit is a bit too long to place in this space, so I have linked it, for those interested, here).

  Although I have used a blogging application for this virtual tour of the show, it is not actually a blog; instead it exists to give an idea of the exhibit to those who are unable to see it 'live', so except for comments and responses - which are welcome - I won't be adding to it.

  As much as I've tried to reproduce the feel of the show here, there is truly no substitute for the real thing. In most cases, the small size and low resolution of the photographs virtually guarantees that important details will be vague at best, with the result that comparisons between cover illustrations and source photographs may be difficult to read. [click on any of the images to view them enlarged]

  Finally, the exhibition in its entirety takes up three separate pages on the blog; once you get to the bottom of each page, you must click on 'Older Posts' in order to see the remainder.

  So, to begin: a general view of the first group, cases 1 - 7 (right to left), in the Boston Public Library's Rare Books and Manuscripts exhibition space:

  Now on to the details of each case, and the covers themselves...