[An historically significant presentation photo album including 52 large original photographs: revealing the lights and lighting which dazzled fairgoers to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition buildings and courts by night and day]. Presented to the Chief of Illumination . . . by the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in recognition of his cooperation. . . .

San Francisco, CA & [Schenectady, NY]: Panama-Pacific International Exposition Co.; [General Electric Co.], April 13, 1915. Oblong folio. 14.25 x 11.4 in. [58 pp (unpaginated).], on thick black paper stock. With 52 large silver gelatin photographs, nearly all sized 10.5 x 13.25 in., all mounted at corners, w/ the hand-coloured title photograph laid-in, sized 10.75 x 13.75 in. (title photo w/ minor chipping, minor closed tears, edgewear to fore-edges). Contemporary limp padded calf, label of the Superior Printing & Box Co., Schenectady, NY on rear pastedown (scuffing & edgewear, minor gouge to front cover, spine perished), still an exceptional exemplar, with nearly all of the photos in excellent crisp condition with bright contrast. This astonishing presentation photo album contains 52 singular photographs displaying the lighting, lighting fixtures, buildings and courts of the famed Panama-Pacific International Exposition held in San Francisco, 1915. Ryan (1870-1934) was the director of General Electric’s Illuminating Engineering Laboratory, who pioneered indirect lighting for public spaces and spectacles, and skyscraper illumination, forever changing how Expositions and cityscapes would be viewed both in popular culture, and decorative arts. He had previously directed the massive first complete illumination lighting project for the 1907 lighting of Niagara Falls which required the installation of batteries of spotlights and projectors providing a combined illumination of 1.1 billion candles. He enthusiastically embraced the project of lighting the PPIE, and against considerable opposition from local architects, designers, and colour artists, his lighting plan was composed of floods of lights upon the facades of the buildings, rather than rows of bare light bulbs as used in prior Fairs which he felt were distracting. With his scheme for depth, or “shadow lighting” he set out an ambitious plan featuring recessed floodlights, weighted banners to screen floodlight units, and even a Southern Pacific Railroad locomotive with 48 searchlights off the Marina for his electric light Scintillator. The Scintillator was manned by a company of U.S. Marines executing precise drills every night, weaving artificial light auroras in the San Francisco for, or in clouds of steam from the locomotive to simulate fireworks. Each of the Courts was lit with a distinctive nightime colour with the underwater lights in the Court of the Seasons glowing green under the pools of water; the fountains in the Court of the Universe were a stellar white, while the Court of the Ages featured infernal red, with “light altars” decorated with writing serpents. The most spectacular and centerpiece lighting effect was the famed 432-foot Tower of Jewels with an arch larger than the Arc de Triomphe, and step-backed tower, with military trophies and armillary sphere, hung with over 102,000 faceted Austrian glass “Novagems.” The concealed lights and searchlights created an effect known as “The Burning of the Tower” in homage to the 1906 Earthquake and Fire which had devastated so much of San Francisco less than 10 years prior. The photos also show the public lamps, lighting fixtures, and the designs of the Exposition, with many depicting the before and after effects of nighttime lighting, and reflection in the pools of water of many of the iconic facades. The International Jury of Awards of the Exposition for the first time adjudged the illumination of the Exposition to be a “decorative art.” Ryan would also less than 20 years later oversee the lighting for the Century of Progress Exposition at Chicago. Worldcat locates a reduced album with 27 photographs presented by Walter D’Arcy Ryan to Grace Miller commemorating Thomas Edison’s visit to the PPIE (Boston Public); See: Gray Brechin, The Architecture of the Fair: Lighting and Color, Historical Essay, Found SF, Shaping San Francisco’s Digital Archive (2021); John Winthrop Hammond, Lighting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, Museum of the City of San Francisco (2021).