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Home / 9 Alfred Stieglitz Showed Progressive European Art in His New York Art Gallery Called

9 Alfred Stieglitz Showed Progressive European Art in His New York Art Gallery Called

American lensman (1864–1946)

Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz.jpg

Stieglitz in 1902 past Gertrude Käsebier
Built-in (1864-01-01)Jan 1, 1864

Hoboken, New Jersey, U.S.
Died July thirteen, 1946(1946-07-13) (aged 82)

New York City, U.South.
Known for Photography
Spouse(s)

Emmeline Obermayer

​

​

(m. 1893; div. 1924)​

Georgia O'Keeffe

​

​

(m. 1924)​

Alfred Stieglitz HonFRPS (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American lensman and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accustomed art grade. In improver to his photography, Stieglitz was known for the New York art galleries that he ran in the early part of the 20th century, where he introduced many advanced European artists to the U.Due south. He was married to painter Georgia O'Keeffe.

Early life and didactics [edit]

Stieglitz was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, the showtime son of German Jewish immigrants Edward Stieglitz (1833–1909) and Hedwig Ann Werner (1845–1922).[1] His male parent was a lieutenant in the Union Army and worked as a wool merchant.[ii] He had five siblings, Flora (1865–1890), twins Julius (1867–1937) and Leopold (1867–1956), Agnes (1869–1952) and Selma (1871–1957). Alfred Stieglitz, seeing the shut relationship of the twins, wished he had a soul mate of his own during his childhood.[ane]

Stieglitz attended Charlier Institute, a Christian school in New York, in 1871. The following year, his family unit began spending the summers at Lake George in the Adirondack Mountains, a tradition that continued into Stieglitz's adulthood.[3]

Then that he could qualify for access to the City College of New York, Stieglitz was enrolled in a public school for his inferior yr of loftier school, but institute the education inadequate. In 1881, Edward Stieglitz sold his company for US$forty,000 and moved his family unit to Europe for the next several years and so that his children would receive a ameliorate education. Alfred Stieglitz enrolled in the Real Gymnasium in Karlsruhe.[3] The adjacent year, Alfred Stieglitz studied mechanical technology at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin. He enrolled in a chemistry class taught past Hermann Wilhelm Vogel, a scientist and researcher, who worked on the chemical processes for developing photographs. In Vogel, Stieglitz constitute both the academic challenge he needed and an outlet for his growing artistic and cultural interests. He received an allowance of $1,200 (equivalent to $33,695 in 2021) a month.[3] [4]

Early on interest in photography [edit]

Alfred Stieglitz, The Last Joke, Bellagio, 1887

In 1884, his parents returned to America, simply twenty-twelvemonth-old Stieglitz remained in Germany and collected books on photography and photographers in Europe and the U.S.[five] He bought his get-go camera, an 8 × 10 plate flick camera, and traveled through the Netherlands, Italy and Frg. He took photographs of landscapes and workers in the countryside. Photography, he later wrote, "fascinated me, first as a toy, so as a passion, then as an obsession."[half-dozen]

Through his cocky-study, he saw photography every bit an art form. In 1887, he wrote his very first article, "A Word or Ii most Apprentice Photography in Germany", for the new mag The Amateur Photographer.[7] He so wrote manufactures on the technical and aesthetic aspects of photography for magazines in England and Germany.

He won first place for his photography, The Last Joke, Bellagio, in 1887 from Amateur Photographer. The next year he won both first and second prizes in the same contest, and his reputation began to spread as several German and British photographic magazines published his work.[8]

In 1890, his sister Flora died while giving birth, and Stieglitz returned to New York.[3]

Career [edit]

New York and the Camera Club (1891–1901) [edit]

The Terminal (1893) past Alfred Stieglitz

Stieglitz considered himself an artist, just he refused to sell his photographs. His father purchased a small photography business for him so that he could earn a living in his chosen profession. Considering he demanded loftier quality images and paid his employee high wages, the Photochrome Engraving Company rarely made a profit.[8] He regularly wrote for The American Apprentice Photographer magazine. He won awards for his photographs at exhibitions, including the joint exhibition of the Boston Camera Gild, Photographic Club of Philadelphia and the Society of Amateur Photographers of New York.

In late 1892, Stieglitz bought his first hand-held camera, a Folmer and Schwing four×5 plate film camera,[eight] which he used to take two of his best known images, Wintertime, 5th Avenue and The Terminal. Prior to that he used an viii×ten plate film camera that required a tripod.

Stieglitz gained a reputation for his photography and his magazine manufactures about how photography is a class of art. In the spring of 1893, he became co-editor of The American Amateur Photographer. In lodge to avert the appearance of bias in his opinions and because Photochrome was at present printing the photogravures for the magazine, Stieglitz refused to depict a salary.[1] He wrote near of the articles and reviews in the magazine, and was known for both his technical and his disquisitional content.

Wintertime – 5th Avenue (1893) by Alfred Stieglitz

On November 16, 1893, the 29-year-old Stieglitz married twenty-yr-old Emmeline Obermeyer, the sister of his shut friend and business associate Joe Obermeyer and granddaughter of brewer Samuel Liebmann. They were married in New York City. Stieglitz later wrote that he did not dear Emmy, as she was commonly known, when they were married and that their matrimony was non consummated for at least a twelvemonth.[4] Daughter of a wealthy brewery owner, she had inherited coin from her father.[1] Stieglitz came to regret his determination to ally Emmy, equally she did not share his artistic and cultural interests. Stieglitz biographer Richard Whelan summed upwards their relationship by saying Stieglitz "resented her bitterly for non becoming his twin." Throughout his life Stieglitz maintained a fetish for younger women.[eight]

Venetian Canal (1894) by Alfred Stieglitz

In early 1894, Stieglitz and his married woman took a delayed honeymoon to French republic, Italia and Switzerland. Stieglitz photographed extensively on the trip, producing some of his early famous images such as A Venetian Canal, The Internet Mender and A Moisture Day on the Boulevard, Paris. While in Paris, Stieglitz met French photographer Robert Demachy, who became a lifelong correspondent and colleague. In London, Stieglitz met The Linked Ring founders George Davison and Alfred Horsley Hinton, both of whom remained his friends and colleagues throughout much of his life.

Afterward in the year, later on his return, Stieglitz was unanimously elected as one of the offset two American members of The Linked Band. Stieglitz saw this recognition as the impetus he needed to step upwardly his cause of promoting artistic photography in the U.s.a..[4] At the fourth dimension in that location were two photographic clubs in New York, the Club of Amateur Photographers and the New York Camera Club. Stieglitz resigned from his position at the Photochrome Visitor and as editor of American Amateur Lensman and spent most of 1895 negotiating a merger of the two clubs.

In May 1896, the ii organizations joined to form The Photographic camera Club of New York. Although offered the organization's presidency, he became vice-president. He developed programs for the club and was involved in all aspects of the arrangement. He told journalist Theodore Dreiser he wanted to "make the guild so large, its labors and then distinguished and its authority so final that [it] may satisfactorily use its dandy prestige to compel recognition for the individual artists without and within its walls."[nine]

Stieglitz turned the Camera Society's electric current newsletter into a magazine, Camera Notes, and was given full control over the new publication. Its first issue was published in July 1897. Information technology was soon considered the finest photographic magazine in the world.[10] Over the side by side four years Stieglitz used Camera Notes to champion his belief in photography as an fine art course by including manufactures on art and aesthetics next to prints past some of the leading American and European photographers. Critic Sadakichi Hartmann wrote "information technology seemed to me that creative photography, the Photographic camera Club and Alfred Stieglitz were only three names for one and the same matter."[11]

He too connected to take his own photographs. Tardily in 1896, he paw-pulled the photogravures for a first portfolio of his ain piece of work, Picturesque Bits of New York and Other Studies.[12] He continued to exhibit in shows in Europe and the U.S., and by 1898 he had gained a solid reputation as a lensman. He was paid $75 (equivalent to $2,443 in 2021) for his favorite print, Winter – Fifth Avenue.[5] Ten of Stieglitz'due south prints were selected that year for the first Philadelphia Photographic Salon, where he met and and so became friends of Gertrude Käsebier and Clarence H. White.

On September 27, 1898, Stieglitz's daughter, Katherine "Kitty", was born. Using Emmy'south inheritance, the couple hired a governess, cook and a chambermaid. Stieglitz worked at the same step every bit earlier the birth of his daughter, and as a upshot, the couple predominantly lived separate lives under the same roof.[4]

In November 1898, a group of photographers in Munich, Germany, mounted an exhibit of their work in conjunction with a show of graphic prints from artists that included Edvard Munch and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. They called themselves the "Secessionists", a term that Stieglitz latched onto for both its artistic and its social meanings. Four years later, he used this aforementioned proper noun for a newly formed group of pictorial photographers that he organized in New York.

In May 1899, Stieglitz was given a one-human being exhibition, consisting of lxxx-seven prints, at the Camera Club. The strain of preparing for this show, coupled with the continuing efforts to produce Camera Notes, took a toll on Stieglitz's health. To lessen his burden he brought in his friends Joseph Keiley and Dallet Fugeut, neither of whom were members of the Camera Club, as associate editors of Camera Notes. Upset by this intrusion from outsiders, non to mention their own diminishing presence in the Gild's publication, many of the older members of the Club began to actively entrada confronting Stieglitz's editorial potency. Stieglitz spent most of 1900 finding ways to outmaneuver these efforts, embroiling him in protracted administrative battles.[viii]

One of the few highlights of that year was Stieglitz'southward introduction to a new photographer, Edward Steichen, at the First Chicago Photographic Salon. Steichen, originally a painter, he brought many of his artistic instincts to photography. The two became skillful friends and colleagues.

Due to the continued strain of managing the Photographic camera Club, by the post-obit year he collapsed in the get-go of several mental breakdowns.[8] He spent much of the summer at the family'due south Lake George dwelling house, Oaklawn, recuperating. When he returned to New York, he announced his resignation as editor of Camera Notes.[i]

The Photo-Secession and Camera Work (1902–1907) [edit]

Jump Showers, The Coach (1899–1900) by Stieglitz

Lensman Eva Watson-Schütze urged him to establish an exhibition that would be judged solely by photographers[13] who, unlike painters and other artists, knew about photography and its technical characteristics. In Dec 1901, he was invited by Charles DeKay of the National Arts Club to put together an exhibition in which Stieglitz would have "full power to follow his ain inclinations."[fourteen] Within two months Stieglitz had assembled a collection of prints from a close circle of his friends, which, in homage to the Munich photographers, he chosen the Photo-Secession. Stieglitz was not merely declaring a secession from the general artistic restrictions of the era, simply specifically from the official oversight of the Camera Club.[15] The show opened at the Arts Club in early March 1902, and it was an immediate success.

He began formulating a plan to publish a completely independent magazine of pictorial photography to carry forth the artistic standards of the Photograph-Secessionist. By July, he had fully resigned as editor of Photographic camera Notes, and one calendar month later he published a prospectus for a new periodical he called Camera Work. He was determined it would exist "the best and virtually sumptuous of photographic publications".[one] The first event was printed four months after, in Dec 1902, and like all of the subsequent bug it contained cute paw-pulled photogravures, critical writings on photography, aesthetics and art, and reviews and commentaries on photographers and exhibitions. Camera Work was "the get-go photographic periodical to exist visual in focus."[xvi]

Stieglitz was a perfectionist, and it showed in every attribute of Camera Work. He advanced the art of photogravure printing by demanding unprecedentedly loftier standards for the prints in Camera Work. The visual quality of the gravures was then high that when a prepare of prints failed to arrive for a Photograph-Secession exhibition in Brussels, a choice of gravures from the magazine was hung instead. Most viewers assumed they were looking at the original photographs.[i]

Throughout 1903, Stieglitz published Camera Piece of work and worked to showroom his own work and that of the Photograph-Secessionists[8] while dealing with the stresses of his home life. Luxembourgian American photographer, Edward Steichen, who later would curate the landmark exhibit The Family of Man, was the most frequently featured photographer in the magazine. Fuguet, Keiley, and Strauss, Stieglitz'south iii associate editors at Camera Notes, he brought with him to Camera Work. Afterward, he said that he solitary individually wrapped and mailed some 35,000 copies of Camera Work over the course of its publication.[viii]

By 1904, Stieglitz was again mentally and physically wearied and decided to take his family to Europe in May. He planned a grueling schedule of exhibitions, meetings and excursions and collapsed almost upon inflow in Berlin, where he spent more than a calendar month recuperating. He spent much of the remainder of 1904 photographing Deutschland while his family visited their relations there. On his style back to the U. South. Stieglitz stopped in London and met with leaders of the Linked Ring but was unable to convince them to prepare a chapter of their organization in America (with Stieglitz as the manager).

Going to the Commencement (1905) by Stieglitz

On November 25, 1905, the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession" opened on 5th Avenue with one hundred prints by 30-9 photographers. Steichen had recommended and encouraged Stieglitz, on his return from Europe, to charter out 3 rooms across from Steichen'southward apartment that the pair felt would be perfect to showroom photography. The gallery became an instant success, with almost 15 thousand visitors during its first flavor and, more importantly, print sales that totaled nearly $ii,800.[17] Work past his friend Steichen, who had an apartment in the same edifice, accounted for more than one-half of those sales.[one]

Stieglitz connected to focus his efforts on photography, at the expense of his family. Emmy, who hoped she would one day earn Stieglitz's love, continued giving him an allowance from her inheritance.[8]

In the October 1906 issue of Camera Work, his friend Joseph Keiley said: "Today in America the existent boxing for which the Photo-Secession was established has been accomplished – the serious recognition of photography as an additional medium of pictorial expression."[18]

Two months later on the 42 year-onetime Stieglitz met 28 year-old artist Pamela Colman Smith, who wished to have her drawings and watercolors shown at his gallery. He decided to bear witness her piece of work because he thought information technology would be "highly instructive to compare drawings and photographs in order to judge photography'south possibilities and limitations".[17] Her bear witness opened in January 1907, with far more visitors to the gallery than whatever of the previous photography shows, and shortly all of her exhibited works were sold. Stieglitz, hoping to capitalize on the popularity of the show, took photographs of her art work and issued a divide portfolio of his platinum prints of her work.[1]

The Steerage, 291 and modern art (1907–1916) [edit]

In the late spring of 1907, Stieglitz collaborated on a series of photographic experiments with his friend Clarence H. White. They took several dozen photographs of two clothed and nude models and printed a choice using unusual techniques, including toning, waxing and drawing on platinum prints. According to Stieglitz, it overcame "the impossibility of the photographic camera to exercise sure things."[1]

He made less than $400 for the yr due to declining Camera Work subscriptions and the gallery's low turn a profit margin.[eight] For years, Emmy had maintained an extravagant lifestyle that included a full-time governess for Kitty and expensive European vacations. In spite of her begetter's concerns about his growing financial problems, the Stieglitz family and their governess one time over again sailed across the Atlantic.

While on his way to Europe, Stieglitz took what is recognized not only as his signature prototype but also as one of the nearly important photographs of the 20th century.[19] Aiming his photographic camera at the lower class passengers in the bow of the transport, he captured a scene he titled The Steerage. He did non publish or exhibit it for four years.

While in Europe, Stieglitz saw the offset commercial demonstration of the Autochrome Lumière color photography process, and soon he was experimenting with it in Paris with Steichen, Frank Eugene and Alvin Langdon Coburn. He took three of Steichen's Autochromes with him to Munich in order to have four-color reproductions fabricated for insertion into a future issue of Photographic camera Work.

He was asked to resign from the Photographic camera Order, merely due to protests by other members he was reinstated as a life member. Simply after he presented a groundbreaking show of Auguste Rodin'due south drawings, his fiscal problems forced him to close the Picayune Galleries for a cursory period, until February 1908, when it was reopened under the new name "291".

Stieglitz deliberately interspersed exhibitions of what he knew would be controversial art, such as Rodin's sexually explicit drawings, with what Steichen called "understandable art", and with photographs. The intention was to "ready up a dialogue that would enable 291 visitors to run into, hash out and ponder the differences and similarities betwixt artists of all ranks and types: between painters, draftsmen, sculptors and photographers; between European and American artists; between older or more established figures and younger, newer practitioners."[20] During this same flow the National Arts Club mounted a "Special Exhibition of Contemporary Art" that included photographs past Stieglitz, Steichen, Käsebier and White forth with paintings by Mary Cassatt, William Glackens, Robert Henri, James McNeill Whistler and others. This is thought to have been the first major bear witness in the U.Southward. in which photographers were given equal ranking with painters.[20]

For almost of 1908 and 1909, Stieglitz spent his time creating shows at 291 and publishing Camera Work. There were no photographs taken during this menstruum that appear in the definitive catalog of his piece of work, Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Prepare.[20]

In May 1909, Stieglitz's begetter Edward died, and in his will he left his son the then meaning sum of $x,000 (equivalent to $301,593 in 2021). Stieglitz used this new infusion of cash to keep his gallery and Camera Work in concern for the side by side several years.

During this menstruation, Stieglitz met Marius de Zayas, an energetic and charismatic artist from United mexican states, who became one of his closest colleagues, assisting both with shows at the gallery and with introducing Stieglitz to new artists in Europe. As Stieglitz'south reputation as a promoter of European modern art increased, he soon was approached by several new American artists hoping to have their works shown. Stieglitz was intrigued by their modernistic vision, within months Alfred Maurer, John Marin and Marsden Hartley all had their works hanging on the walls of 291.

In 1910, Stieglitz was invited by the director of the Albright Art Gallery to organize a major testify of the all-time of contemporary photography. Although an declaration of an open up contest for the show was printed in Camera Work, the fact that Stieglitz would be in charge of it generated a new round of attacks against him. An editorial in American Photography magazine claimed that Stieglitz could no longer "perceive the value of photographic piece of work of artistic merit which does not conform to a particular mode which is then characteristic of all exhibitions nether his auspices. One-half a generation agone this school [the Photo-Secession] was progressive, and far in advance of its fourth dimension. Today information technology is not progressing, just is a reactionary force of the most dangerous type."[21]

Stieglitz wrote to fellow lensman George Seeley "The reputation, not only of the Photo-Secession, but of photography is at stake, and I intend to muster all the forces available to win out for us."[one] The exhibition opened in October with more than 600 photographs. Critics generally praised the cute artful and technical qualities of the works. However, his critics found that the vast majority of the prints in the show were from the same photographers Stieglitz had known for years and whose works he had exhibited at 291. More than 5 hundred of the prints came from but thirty-seven photographers, including Steichen, Coburn, Seeley, White, F. Holland Day, and Stieglitz himself.

In the January 1911 edition of Camera Work, Stieglitz, dismissive of what he perceived every bit commercialism, reprinted a review of the Buffalo show with disparaging words virtually White and Käsebier'south photos. White never forgave Stieglitz. He started his own school of photography, and Käsebier and White co-founded the "Pictorial Photographers of America".

Throughout 1911 and early on 1912, Stieglitz organized footing-breaking modern art exhibits at 291 and promoted new fine art along with photography in the pages of Camera Work. By the summer of 1912, he was so enthralled with not-photographic art that he published an issue of Camera Work (August 1912) devoted solely to Matisse and Picasso.[16]

In late 1912, painters Walter Pach, Arthur B. Davies and Walt Kuhn organized a modern art show, and Stieglitz lent a few mod art pieces from 291 to the testify. He also agreed to be listed as an honorary vice-president of the exhibition forth with Claude Monet, Odilon Redon, Mabel Contrivance and Isabella Stewart Gardner. In Feb 1913, the watershed Arsenal Evidence opened in New York, and soon modernistic fine art was a major topic of give-and-take throughout the city. He saw the popularity of the show equally a vindication of the work that he had been sponsoring at 291 for the past five years.[22] He mounted an exhibition of his own photographs at 291 to run at the same fourth dimension as the Armory Show. He later wrote that assuasive people to run into both photographs and modern paintings at the same fourth dimension "afforded the best opportunity to the educatee and public for a clearer understanding of the place and purpose of the two media."[23]

In January 1914, his closest friend and coworker Joseph Keiley died, which left him distraught for many weeks. He was likewise troubled past the outbreak of World War I for several reasons. He was concerned most the rubber of family unit and friends in Germany. He needed to observe a new printer for the photogravures for Camera Work, which had been printed in Germany for many years. The war acquired a pregnant downturn in the American economy and art became a luxury for many people. By the end of the year, Stieglitz was struggling to go along both 291 and Photographic camera Piece of work live. He published the April issue of Camera Work in October, only it would be more than than a year before he had the time and resources to publish the side by side issue.

In the meantime Stieglitz's friends de Zayas, Paul de Haviland, and Agnes Meyer convinced him that the solution to his bug was to take on a totally new project, something that would re-engage him in his interests. He published a new journal, called 291 later his gallery, that intended to be the epitome of avant-garde civilisation. While it was an artful triumph, it was a financial disaster and ceased publication after twelve issues.

During this menstruation, Stieglitz became increasingly intrigued with a more modern visual aesthetics for photography. He became aware of what was going on in avant-garde painting and sculpture and found that pictorialism no longer represented the time to come – it was the past. He was influenced in part past painter Charles Sheeler and by lensman Paul Strand. In 1915, Strand, who had been coming to encounter shows at 291 for many years, introduced Stieglitz to a new photographic vision that was embodied by the bold lines of everyday forms. Stieglitz was ane of the start to encounter the beauty and grace of Strand's way, and he gave Strand a major exhibit at 291. He as well devoted virtually the entire last issue of Photographic camera Work to his photographs.

In Jan 1916, Stieglitz was shown a portfolio of charcoal drawings by a young artist named Georgia O'Keeffe. Stieglitz was so taken past her art that without meeting O'Keeffe or fifty-fifty getting her permission to show her works he made plans to exhibit her work at 291. The showtime that O'Keeffe heard most whatsoever of this was from some other friend who saw her drawings in the gallery in late May of that year. She finally met Stieglitz later on going to 291 and chastising him for showing her work without her permission.[one]

Soon thereafter O'Keeffe met Paul Strand, and for several months she and Strand exchanged increasingly romantic messages. When Strand told his friend Stieglitz about his new yearning, Stieglitz responded by telling Strand most his ain infatuation with O'Keeffe. Gradually Strand'due south interest waned, and Stieglitz's escalated. Past the summer of 1917 he and O'Keeffe were writing each other "their most private and complicated thoughts",[24] and information technology was clear that something very intense was developing.

The twelvemonth 1917 marked the end of an era in Stieglitz'due south life and the beginning of another. In part because of irresolute aesthetics, the changing times brought on by the war and because of his growing relationship with O'Keeffe, he no longer had the interest or the resources to continue what he had been doing for the past decade. Within the flow of a few months, he disbanded what was left of the Photo-Secession, ceased publishing Camera Work and closed the doors of 291. Information technology was likewise clear to him that his marriage to Emmy was over. He had finally institute "his twin", and null would stand in his manner of the relationship he had wanted all of his life.

O'Keeffe and mod art (1918–1924) [edit]

In early June 1918, O'Keeffe moved to New York from Texas later on Stieglitz promised he would provide her with a quiet studio where she could paint. Within a month he took the first of many nude photographs of her at his family unit's flat while his married woman Emmy was away, but she returned while their session was withal in progress. She had suspected something was going on between the two for a while, and told him to end seeing her or become out.[8] Stieglitz left and immediately constitute a place in the city where he and O'Keeffe could live together. They slept separately for more than two weeks. By the end of July they were in the same bed together, and by mid-August when they visited Oaklawn "they were like two teenagers in dearest. Several times a day they would run upward the stairs to their bedroom, and then eager to brand love that they would start taking their clothes off equally they ran."[i]

One time he was out of their apartment Emmy had a change of heart. Due to the legal delays caused by Emmy and her brothers, it would be six more years before the divorce was finalized. During this period Stieglitz and O'Keeffe connected to live together, although she would go off on her own from time to time to create fine art. Stieglitz used their times apart to concentrate on his photography and promotion of mod art.

O'Keeffe was the muse Stieglitz had always wanted. He photographed O'Keeffe obsessively between 1918 and 1925 in what was the most prolific period in his unabridged life. During this flow he produced more than 350 mounted prints of O'Keeffe that portrayed a wide range of her graphic symbol, moods and beauty. He shot many close-up studies of parts of her body, peculiarly her hands either isolated by themselves or near her confront or hair. O'Keeffe biographer Roxanna Robinson states that her "personality was crucial to these photographs; information technology was this, as much as her body, that Stieglitz was recording."[24]

In 1920, Stieglitz was invited by Mitchell Kennerly of the Anderson Galleries in New York to put together a major exhibition of his photographs. In early 1921, he hung the first ane-man exhibit of his photographs since 1913. Of the 146 prints he put on view, only 17 had been seen before. Forty-half-dozen were of O'Keeffe, including many nudes, merely she was non identified every bit the model on whatever of the prints.[1] It was in the itemize for this show that Stieglitz made his famous annunciation: "I was built-in in Hoboken. I am an American. Photography is my passion. The search for Truth my obsession." What is less known is that he conditioned this statement past following information technology with these words:

Please NOTE: In the higher up STATEMENT the following, fast becoming "obsolete", terms practice not appear: Art, SCIENCE, BEAUTY, RELIGION, every ISM, Brainchild, FORM, PLASTICITY, OBJECTIVITY, SUBJECTIVITY, Onetime MASTERS, Modernistic ART, PSYCHOANALYSIS, AESTHETICS, PICTORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY, Democracy, CEZANNE, "291", PROHIBITION. The term TRUTH did creep in but it may exist kicked out past any one.[25]

In 1922, Stieglitz organized a large show of John Marin'due south paintings and etching at the Anderson Galleries, followed past a huge auction of nearly two hundred paintings by more than xl American artists, including O'Keeffe. Energized by this activeness, he began 1 of his nearly artistic and unusual undertakings – photographing a series of cloud studies just for their form and beauty. He said:

I wanted to photograph clouds to find out what I had learned in forty years about photography. Through clouds to put downwards my philosophy of life – to show that (the success of) my photographs (was) not due to subject area matter – not to special trees or faces, or interiors, to special privileges – clouds were there for everyone…[26]

Past late summer he had created a serial he called "Music – A Sequence of Ten Deject Photographs". Over the next twelve years he would take hundreds of photographs of clouds without whatsoever reference points of location or direction. These are generally recognized as the first intentionally abstract photographs, and they remain some of his most powerful photographs. He would come refer to these photographs as Equivalents.

Stieglitz'due south mother Hedwig died in November 1922, and as he did with his begetter he buried his grief in his work. He spent time with Paul Strand and his new married woman Rebecca (Beck), reviewed the work of another newcomer named Edward Weston and began organizing a new prove of O'Keeffe'due south work. Her show opened in early 1923, and Stieglitz spent much of the spring marketing her work. Eventually twenty of her paintings sold for more than $3,000. In the summer, O'Keeffe over again took off for the seclusion of the Southwest, and for a while Stieglitz was solitary with Beck Strand at Lake George. He took a series of nude photos of her, and soon he became infatuated with her. They had a brief physical affair before O'Keeffe returned in the fall. O'Keeffe could tell what had happened, but since she did not see Stieglitz'south new lover equally a serious threat to their relationship she let things pass. Six years later she would have her own affair with Beck Strand in New Mexico.[27]

In 1924, Stieglitz'south divorce was finally canonical by a gauge, and within four months he and O'Keeffe married in a small-scale, private ceremony at Marin's house. They went domicile without a reception or honeymoon. O'Keeffe said later that they married in order to assist soothe the troubles of Stieglitz's daughter Kitty, who at that time was being treated in a sanatorium for depression and hallucinations.[24] For the rest of their lives together, their relationship was, as biographer Benita Eisler characterized it, "a collusion ... a system of deals and trade-offs, tacitly agreed to and carried out, for the nearly office, without the exchange of a discussion. Preferring avoidance to confrontation on most issues, O'Keeffe was the principal agent of bunco in their union."[27]

In the coming years O'Keeffe would spend much of her time painting in New Mexico, while Stieglitz rarely left New York except for summers at his male parent's family unit estate in Lake George in the Adirondacks, his favorite vacation place. O'Keeffe later said "Stieglitz was a hypochondriac and couldn't exist more than fifty miles from a doctor."[28]

At the end of 1924, Stieglitz donated 27 photographs to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Information technology was the kickoff time a major museum included photographs in its permanent collection. In the same year he was awarded the Majestic Photographic Society's Progress Medal for advancing photography and received an Honorary Fellowship of the Club.[29]

The Intimate Gallery and An American Place (1925–1937) [edit]

In 1925, Stieglitz was invited by the Anderson Galleries to put together one of the largest exhibitions of American fine art, entitled Alfred Stieglitz Presents Seven Americans: 159 Paintings, Photographs, and Things, Recent and Never Before Publicly Shown by Arthur 1000. Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Charles Demuth, Paul Strand, Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Just one small painting by O'Keeffe was sold during the three-week exhibit.[17]

Soon afterwards, Stieglitz was offered the connected apply of one of the rooms at the Anderson Galleries, which he used for a serial of exhibitions by some of the same artists in the Seven Americans show. In Dec 1925, he opened his new gallery, "The Intimate Gallery," which he nicknamed "The Room" considering of its small size. Over the next four years, he put together sixteen shows of works by Marin, Dove, Hartley, O'Keeffe and Strand, along with individual exhibits past Gaston Lachaise, Oscar Bluemner and Francis Picabia. During this time, Stieglitz cultivated a relationship with influential new art collector Duncan Phillips, who purchased several works through The Intimate Gallery.

In 1927, Stieglitz became infatuated with the 22 twelvemonth-erstwhile Dorothy Norman, who was then volunteering at the gallery, and they roughshod in love. Norman was married and had a child, but she came to the gallery almost every day.

O'Keeffe accepted an offering past Mabel Dodge to go to New Mexico for the summer. Stieglitz took advantage of her fourth dimension away to begin photographing Norman, and he began teaching her the technical aspects of printing equally well. When Norman had a second kid, she was absent-minded from the gallery for about two months earlier returning on a regular basis.[eight] Within a short time, they became lovers, but even later on their physical affair diminished a few years afterwards, they continued to work together whenever O'Keeffe was non around until Stieglitz died in 1946.

In early 1929, Stieglitz was told that the building that housed the Room would be torn downward afterward in the year. Later on a last testify of Demuth'due south work in May, he retreated to Lake George for the summertime, exhausted and depressed. The Strands raised nearly sixteen thousand dollars for a new gallery for Stieglitz, who reacted harshly, saying it was time for "young ones" to do some of the piece of work he had been shouldering for so many years.[17] Although Stieglitz eventually apologized and accustomed their generosity, the incident marked the beginning of the end of their long and close relationship.

In the late fall, Stieglitz returned to New York. On December 15, two weeks before his sixty-5th birthday, he opened "An American Place", the largest gallery he had ever managed. It had the starting time darkroom he had always had in the city. Previously, he had borrowed other darkrooms or worked simply when he was at Lake George. He connected showing group or individual shows of his friends Marin, Demuth, Hartley, Dove and Strand for the adjacent xvi years. O'Keeffe received at least i major exhibition each yr. He fiercely controlled access to her works and incessantly promoted her even when critics gave her less than favorable reviews. Oftentimes during this time, they would only see each other during the summer, when it was likewise hot in her New Mexico abode, just they wrote to each other almost weekly with the fervor of soul mates.[27]

In 1932, Stieglitz mounted a 40-year retrospective of 127 of his works at The Place. He included all of his most famous photographs, just he also purposely chose to include recent photos of O'Keeffe, who, because of her years in the Southwest sun, looked older than her forty-five years, in comparison to Stieglitz's portraits of his young lover Norman. It was ane of the few times he acted spitefully to O'Keeffe in public, and it might have been as a result of their increasingly intense arguments in private about his control over her art.[27]

Later that year, he mounted a show of O'Keeffe'south works next to some amateurish paintings on glass by Becky Strand. He did not publish a catalog of the bear witness, which the Strands took as an insult. Paul Strand never forgave Stieglitz for that. He said, "The day I walked into the Photo-Secession 291 [sic] in 1907 was a great moment in my life… simply the solar day I walked out of An American Place in 1932 was non less expert. It was fresh air and personal liberation from something that had go, for me at least, 2d-rate, corrupt and meaningless."[27]

In 1936, Stieglitz returned briefly to his photographic roots by mounting 1 of the kickoff exhibitions of photos by Ansel Adams in New York City. The show was successful and David McAlpin bought viii Adams photos.[30] He also put on one of the offset shows of Eliot Porter's piece of work ii years later. Stieglitz, considered the "godfather of modern photography", encouraged Todd Webb to develop his ain style and immerse himself in the medium.[31]

The side by side yr, the Cleveland Museum of Art mounted the start major exhibition of Stieglitz's work outside of his own galleries. In the course of making sure that each print was perfect, he worked himself into exhaustion. O'Keeffe spent most of that twelvemonth in New Mexico.

Concluding years (1938–1946) [edit]

In early 1938, Stieglitz suffered a serious heart attack, one of half dozen coronary or angina attacks that would strike him over the next eight years, each of which left him increasingly weakened. During his absences, Dorothy Norman managed the gallery. O'Keeffe remained in her Southwest home from bound to autumn of this menses.

In the summertime of 1946, Stieglitz suffered a fatal stroke and went into a blackout. O'Keeffe returned to New York and found Dorothy Norman was in his infirmary room. She left and O'Keeffe was with him when he died.[27] Co-ordinate to his wishes, a simple funeral was attended by twenty of his closest friends and family members. Stieglitz was cremated, and, with his niece Elizabeth Davidson, O'Keeffe took his ashes to Lake George and "put him where he could hear the water."[27] The day after the funeral, O'Keeffe took control of An American Identify.[one]

Key ready [edit]

Stieglitz produced more than 2,500 mounted photographs over his career. Later his expiry, O'Keeffe assembled a set of what she considered the best of his photographs that he had personally mounted. In some cases she included slightly different versions of the same image, and these series are invaluable for their insights almost Stieglitz's aesthetic composition. In 1949, she donated the showtime part of what she called the "key fix" of 1,317 Stieglitz photographs to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. In 1980, she added to the set another 325 photographs taken by Stieglitz of her, including many nudes. Now numbering 1,642 photographs, it is the largest, about consummate collection of Stieglitz's work. In 2002 the National Gallery published a two-volume, 1,012-folio catalog that reproduced the complete primal ready along with detailed annotations about each photograph.[20]

In 2019, the National Gallery published an updated, Online Edition of the Alfred Stieglitz Key Prepare.[32]

Legacy [edit]

  • Stieglitz explained in 1934:
"Personally I similar my photography straight, unmanipulated, devoid of all tricks; a print not looking like anything but a photograph, living through its own inherent qualities and revealing its ain spirit."[33]
  • "Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) is possibly the most important figure in the history of visual arts in America. That is certainly not to say that he was the greatest artist America has ever produced. Rather, through his many roles – as a photographer, every bit a discoverer and promoter of photographers and of artists in other media, and as a publisher, patron, and collector – he had a greater impact on American art than any other person has had."[34]
  • "Alfred Stieglitz had the multifold abilities of a Renaissance man. A visionary of enormously broad perspective, his accomplishments were remarkable, his dedication monumental. A lensman of genius, a publisher of inspiration, a writer of great ability, a gallery owner and exhibition organizer of both photographic and modern fine art exhibitions, a goad and a charismatic leader in the photographic and fine art worlds for over xxx years, he was, necessarily, a passionate, circuitous, driven and highly contradictory character, both prophet and martyr. The ultimate bohemian, he inspired great love and great hatred in equal mensurate."[16]
  • Viii of the nine highest prices ever paid at auction for Stieglitz photographs (as of 2008) are images of Georgia O'Keeffe. The highest-priced photograph, a 1919 palladium impress of Georgia O'Keeffe - Easily, realized US$one.47 million at sale in February 2006. At the same auction, Georgia O'Keeffe - Torso, another 1919 print, sold for $1.36 million.[35]
  • A large number of his works are held at the Minneapolis Plant of Art.[36]

Gallery [edit]

  • The Hand of Man, 1902

  • Miss Due south.R., 1905

  • Dirigible, 1910

  • Old and New New York, 1910

  • A Snapshot: Paris, 1911
    (ane of two with same championship)

  • A Snapshot: Paris, 1911
    (one of two with same championship)

Come across also [edit]

  • Photography in the The states

References [edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l thousand northward o Richard Whelan (1995). Alfred Stieglitz: A Biography. NY: Little, Brown. pp. 11–22, 214, 281, 382, 400. ISBN0316934046.
  2. ^ Alfred Stieglitz. Camera Work. The Complete Photographs 1903–1917. Taschen TMC Fine art. 1997. p. 8.
  3. ^ a b c d Hunter Drohojowska-Philp (2004). Full Blossom: The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe . W.W. Norton. pp. 54–57. ISBN978-0-393-05853-6.
  4. ^ a b c d Katherine Hoffman (2004). Stieglitz: A Beginning Light. New Haven: Yale Academy Printing Studio. pp. 55–65, 122–140, 213–222.
  5. ^ a b Weston Naef (1978). The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz: L Pioneers of Modernistic Photography. NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. sixteen–48.
  6. ^ "V&A · Alfred Stieglitz – pioneer of modern photography". Victoria and Albert Museum . Retrieved March 16, 2021.
  7. ^ Alfred Stieglitz (February 1887). "A or Two virtually Amateur Photography in Germany". The Amateur Photographer (5): 96–97.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j thousand l Sue Davidson Lowe (1983). Stieglitz: A Memoir/Biography. NY: Farrar Straus Giroux. pp. 19, 22–35, 181–200, 348–366. ISBN0374269904.
  9. ^ Theodore Dreiser (October 1899). "The Camera Society of New York". Ainslee's.
  10. ^ Christian A. Peterson (1993). Alfred Stieglitz's Photographic camera Notes. NY: Norton. pp. 9–60.
  11. ^ Sadakichi Hartmann (February 1900). "The New York Camera Social club". Photographic Times: 59.
  12. ^ Alfred Stieglitz (1897). Picturesque Bits of New York and Other Studies. NY: R. H. Russell.
  13. ^ William Innes Homer (2002). Stieglitz and the Photograph-Secession 1902. NY: Viking Studio. pp. 22, 24–25. ISBN0670030384.
  14. ^ Alfred Stieglitz (Apr 1902). "Exhibitions". Camera Notes: 5.
  15. ^ Robert Doty (1960). Photo-Secession: Photography as Fine Art. Rochester, NY: George Eastman House. p. 43.
  16. ^ a b c Camera Work: The Complete Photographs 1903–1917. Taschen. 2008. pp. seven, 16–18, 31–32.
  17. ^ a b c d Sarah Greenough (2000). Modernistic Fine art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries. Washington: National Gallery of Fine art. pp. 26–53.
  18. ^ Joseph Keiley (Oct 1906). "The Photograph-Secession Exhibit at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts". Camera Piece of work: 15.
  19. ^ Weber, Eva (1994). Alfred Stieglitz. Greenwich, CT: Brompton Books Corporation. p. half-dozen (introduction). ISBN0-517-10332-X.
  20. ^ a b c d Sarah Greenough (2002). Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set. NY: Abrams. pp. xi–xlix, 31, 558.
  21. ^ Frank Fraprie (August 1910). "untitled editorial". American Photography: 476.
  22. ^ Ted Eversole. "Alfred Stieglitz's Camera Piece of work and the Early Cultivation of American Modernism" (PDF). p. 13. Retrieved December 8, 2008.
  23. ^ Alfred Stieglitz (June 1913). "Notes on '291'". Camera Piece of work: 3.
  24. ^ a b c Roaxnna Robinson (1989). Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life . NY: Harper. pp. 195–96, 278–279.
  25. ^ Dorothy Norman (1973). Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer. NY: Random House. pp. 142, 225.
  26. ^ Alfred Stieglitz (September 19, 1923). "How I came to Photograph Clouds". Amateur Photographer and Photography: 255.
  27. ^ a b c d east f g Eisler, Benita (1991). O'Keeffe and Stieglitz: An American Romance. NY: Doubleday. pp. 380–392, 428–429, 478, 493. ISBN0385261225.
  28. ^ "Bringing Modernism to Cyberspace". Art News. 108 (1): 38. January 2009.
  29. ^ "Progress Medal – RPS". world wide web.rps.org. Archived from the original on March 10, 2016. Retrieved May 15, 2018.
  30. ^ Grayness, Andrea (1982). Ansel Adams: An American Place, 1936. Tucson: Center for Creative Photography.
  31. ^ Staff author (2010). "Todd Webb (1905–2000)". Luxury Boutique. Archived from the original on Dec 31, 2010. Retrieved October 12, 2010. Webb soon developed his own unique style of photographing and was further encouraged by Alfred Stieglitz, the frequently considered "Godfather of mod photography," to immerse himself in the medium.
  32. ^ "Alfred Stieglitz Key Set". world wide web.nga.gov . Retrieved September 3, 2019.
  33. ^ Quoted by Dorothy Norman in Aperture three#two (1955) pp. 12-xvi > online
  34. ^ Whelan, Richard (2000). Stieglitz on Photography: His Selected Essays and Notes. NY: Aperture. p. ix.
  35. ^ Photograph sale breaks world record Archived February 26, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  36. ^ "creative person:"Alfred Stieglitz" | Minneapolis Institute of Art". Retrieved Feb 17, 2018.

Further reading [edit]

  • Hostetler, Lisa. "Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) and American Photography." In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (October 2004)
  • Search-light (April 18, 1925). "291". Profiles. The New Yorker. 1 (9): 9–x.
  • Voorhies, James. "Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) and His Circumvolve." In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Fine art, 2000–. (October 2004)
  • Weston Naef (General Editor) (1995), Alfred Stieglitz: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Publications.

External links [edit]

  • George Eastman Business firm: Alfred Stieglitz Drove
  • Alfred Stieglitz at the Art Establish of Chicago
  • PBS website on Stieglitz
  • Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O'Keeffe Annal at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale Academy
  • The Art of the Photogravure: Cardinal Figures
  • The ii most costly Stieglitz photos, 2006
  • Katherine Hoffman, "Alfred Stieglitz: A Legacy of Light",(Yale University Printing, 2011), ISBN 0-300-13445-2
  • Autochromes by Alfred Stieglitz from Marker Jacobs Collection
  • Autochromes past Alfred Stieglitz from the Metropolitan Museum of Fine art
  • Alfred Stieglitz at Find a Grave
  • Guide to the Stieglitz-Mathieu Correspondence 1943–1945 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Stieglitz