A circa 1930s R. B. Graflex Series D curtain aperture camera purportedly deriving from the personal collection of Clyde Sunderland, a distinguished aerial photographer best known for his work of both vertical and oblique images of the greater San Francisco Bay area. The high-quality Graflex rotating back curtain aperture camera, 9 x 8.25 x 7.25, is accompanied by two plate-holders, one of which displays a modern copy of a Sunderland photograph of a seaplane flying underneath the incomplete San Francisco Bay Bridge; an original glossy 9.5 x 7.5 Sunderland photo of the image, featuring his stamp on the reverse; and a vintage glossy 8 x 10 photo of a young boy taking a photograph with a similar camera. In very good condition, with overall scuffing and wear, and a snapped leather strap to the top; the camera is in unknown working order.
Clyde Sunderland (1900-1989) was a pioneering aerial photographer who operated out of his home base of Oakland, California beginning in the 1920s. He was commissioned by Franklin D. Roosevelt to write a textbook on aerial photography and train naval photographers in 1939 and he taught at Pensacola until the end of the war. The consignor notes that this camera was obtained directly from his estate.
