Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer
Home / Discuss Two Ways That Alfred Stieglitz Helped Advanced Art

Discuss Two Ways That Alfred Stieglitz Helped Advanced Art

Post a Comment

American photographer (1864–1946)

Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz.jpg

Stieglitz in 1902 by Gertrude Käsebier
Born (1864-01-01)January i, 1864

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

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

Emmeline Obermayer

​

​

(one thousand. 1893; div. 1924)​

Georgia O'Keeffe

​

​

(yard. 1924)​

Alfred Stieglitz HonFRPS (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was known for the New York art galleries that he ran in the early role of the 20th century, where he introduced many advanced European artists to the U.S. He was married to painter Georgia O'Keeffe.

Early on life and education [edit]

Stieglitz was born in Hoboken, New Bailiwick of jersey, the offset son of German Jewish immigrants Edward Stieglitz (1833–1909) and Hedwig Ann Werner (1845–1922).[1] His begetter was a lieutenant in the Union Army and worked every bit a wool merchant.[ii] He had v 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 babyhood.[one]

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

So that he could qualify for admission to the City College of New York, Stieglitz was enrolled in a public schoolhouse for his inferior year of loftier school, but found the education inadequate. In 1881, Edward Stieglitz sold his company for US$40,000 and moved his family to Europe for the side by side several years so that his children would receive a amend pedagogy. Alfred Stieglitz enrolled in the Real Gymnasium in Karlsruhe.[3] The adjacent year, Alfred Stieglitz studied mechanical engineering at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin. He enrolled in a chemistry class taught by Hermann Wilhelm Vogel, a scientist and researcher, who worked on the chemical processes for developing photographs. In Vogel, Stieglitz found 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] [iv]

Early interest in photography [edit]

Alfred Stieglitz, The Concluding Joke, Bellagio, 1887

In 1884, his parents returned to America, but 20-twelvemonth-old Stieglitz remained in Frg and collected books on photography and photographers in Europe and the U.South.[5] He bought his first photographic camera, an 8 × ten plate film photographic camera, and traveled through the Netherlands, Italia and Germany. He took photographs of landscapes and workers in the countryside. Photography, he later wrote, "fascinated me, first as a toy, then as a passion, then as an obsession."[6]

Through his cocky-study, he saw photography as an art class. In 1887, he wrote his very showtime article, "A Word or Ii about Amateur Photography in Federal republic of germany", for the new magazine The Amateur Photographer.[vii] He and so wrote articles on the technical and aesthetic aspects of photography for magazines in England and Deutschland.

He won first place for his photography, The Final Joke, Bellagio, in 1887 from Amateur Photographer. The next year he won both first and 2d prizes in the aforementioned competition, and his reputation began to spread every bit several German and British photographic magazines published his work.[viii]

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

Career [edit]

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

The Terminal (1893) by Alfred Stieglitz

Stieglitz considered himself an artist, but he refused to sell his photographs. His father purchased a modest photography business for him so that he could earn a living in his chosen profession. Because 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 Lensman magazine. He won awards for his photographs at exhibitions, including the joint exhibition of the Boston Camera Club, Photographic Lodge 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 4×5 plate film camera,[8] which he used to take two of his all-time known images, Winter, 5th Avenue and The Terminal. Prior to that he used an eight×ten plate moving picture camera that required a tripod.

Stieglitz gained a reputation for his photography and his mag articles about how photography is a course of fine art. In the leap of 1893, he became co-editor of The American Amateur Photographer. In order to avoid the appearance of bias in his opinions and because Photochrome was at present printing the photogravures for the mag, Stieglitz refused to describe a salary.[1] He wrote most of the articles and reviews in the mag, and was known for both his technical and his disquisitional content.

Winter – 5th Artery (1893) by Alfred Stieglitz

On Nov 16, 1893, the 29-year-old Stieglitz married xx-year-onetime Emmeline Obermeyer, the sis of his close friend and business concern acquaintance Joe Obermeyer and granddaughter of brewer Samuel Liebmann. They were married in New York City. Stieglitz later wrote that he did not love Emmy, every bit she was commonly known, when they were married and that their marriage was not consummated for at least a year.[iv] Daughter of a wealthy brewery owner, she had inherited money from her father.[i] Stieglitz came to regret his decision to marry Emmy, as she did non share his creative and cultural interests. Stieglitz biographer Richard Whelan summed up their relationship by saying Stieglitz "resented her bitterly for not becoming his twin." Throughout his life Stieglitz maintained a fetish for younger women.[8]

Venetian Canal (1894) by Alfred Stieglitz

In early 1894, Stieglitz and his wife took a delayed honeymoon to France, Italy and Switzerland. Stieglitz photographed extensively on the trip, producing some of his early famous images such as A Venetian Culvert, The Net 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 yr, subsequently his return, Stieglitz was unanimously elected as one of the commencement two American members of The Linked Ring. Stieglitz saw this recognition as the impetus he needed to pace upwards his crusade of promoting creative photography in the U.s..[iv] At the fourth dimension there were 2 photographic clubs in New York, the Social club of Amateur Photographers and the New York Photographic camera Club. Stieglitz resigned from his position at the Photochrome Company and as editor of American Amateur Lensman and spent most of 1895 negotiating a merger of the ii clubs.

In May 1896, the two organizations joined to form The Camera Club of New York. Although offered the organization's presidency, he became vice-president. He developed programs for the society and was involved in all aspects of the organization. He told journalist Theodore Dreiser he wanted to "make the guild so large, its labors and so distinguished and its authority so final that [it] may satisfactorily utilise its great prestige to compel recognition for the individual artists without and inside its walls."[9]

Stieglitz turned the Camera Club'south current newsletter into a magazine, Camera Notes, and was given full control over the new publication. Its offset outcome was published in July 1897. It was soon considered the finest photographic magazine in the world.[10] Over the adjacent iv years Stieglitz used Photographic camera Notes to champion his belief in photography every bit an art class past including articles on fine art and aesthetics next to prints by some of the leading American and European photographers. Critic Sadakichi Hartmann wrote "it seemed to me that artistic photography, the Camera Order and Alfred Stieglitz were merely three names for one and the aforementioned affair."[xi]

He also continued to take his own photographs. Late in 1896, he paw-pulled the photogravures for a first portfolio of his own piece of work, Picturesque Bits of New York and Other Studies.[12] He continued to exhibit in shows in Europe and the U.Southward., and by 1898 he had gained a solid reputation as a photographer. He was paid $75 (equivalent to $2,443 in 2021) for his favorite print, Winter – Fifth Avenue.[5] 10 of Stieglitz'south prints were selected that twelvemonth for the offset Philadelphia Photographic Salon, where he met and and then became friends of Gertrude Käsebier and Clarence H. White.

On September 27, 1898, Stieglitz'due south daughter, Katherine "Kitty", was built-in. Using Emmy's inheritance, the couple hired a governess, cook and a chambermaid. Stieglitz worked at the same stride as earlier the nativity of his daughter, and equally a outcome, the couple predominantly lived split up 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 same proper name for a newly formed group of pictorial photographers that he organized in New York.

In May 1899, Stieglitz was given a one-man exhibition, consisting of lxxx-seven prints, at the Camera Society. The strain of preparing for this testify, 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 Photographic camera Club, as associate editors of Photographic camera Notes. Upset past this intrusion from outsiders, not to mention their ain diminishing presence in the Club'south publication, many of the older members of the Society began to actively campaign confronting Stieglitz's editorial authority. Stieglitz spent almost of 1900 finding means to outmaneuver these efforts, embroiling him in protracted authoritative battles.[8]

One of the few highlights of that year was Stieglitz's 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 good friends and colleagues.

Due to the continued strain of managing the Camera Club, by the post-obit year he collapsed in the first of several mental breakdowns.[8] He spent much of the summer at the family'southward Lake George home, Oaklawn, recuperating. When he returned to New York, he announced his resignation as editor of Camera Notes.[1]

The Photograph-Secession and Camera Piece of work (1902–1907) [edit]

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

Photographer Eva Watson-Schütze urged him to establish an exhibition that would be judged solely by photographers[13] who, dissimilar painters and other artists, knew near photography and its technical characteristics. In December 1901, he was invited by Charles DeKay of the National Arts Social club to put together an exhibition in which Stieglitz would take "full power to follow his own inclinations."[xiv] Within two months Stieglitz had assembled a drove of prints from a shut circle of his friends, which, in homage to the Munich photographers, he chosen the Photo-Secession. Stieglitz was not only declaring a secession from the general artistic restrictions of the era, merely 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 firsthand success.

He began formulating a plan to publish a completely independent magazine of pictorial photography to carry forth the creative standards of the Photograph-Secessionist. By July, he had fully resigned as editor of Camera Notes, and one month later he published a prospectus for a new journal he called Camera Work. He was determined it would be "the best and most sumptuous of photographic publications".[one] The first issue was printed four months later on, in December 1902, and like all of the subsequent problems it contained beautiful hand-pulled photogravures, critical writings on photography, aesthetics and fine art, and reviews and commentaries on photographers and exhibitions. Camera Work was "the starting time photographic journal to exist visual in focus."[16]

Stieglitz was a perfectionist, and it showed in every aspect of Photographic camera Work. He avant-garde the art of photogravure printing by demanding unprecedentedly high standards for the prints in Photographic camera Work. The visual quality of the gravures was so high that when a set of prints failed to go far for a Photo-Secession exhibition in Brussels, a pick of gravures from the magazine was hung instead. Most viewers causeless they were looking at the original photographs.[1]

Throughout 1903, Stieglitz published Camera Piece of work and worked to showroom his own work and that of the Photo-Secessionists[eight] while dealing with the stresses of his home life. Luxembourgish American photographer, Edward Steichen, who later would curate the landmark exhibit The Family of Human being, was the most frequently featured photographer in the mag. Fuguet, Keiley, and Strauss, Stieglitz's three associate editors at Photographic camera Notes, he brought with him to Photographic camera Piece of work. Later, he said that he lonely individually wrapped and mailed some 35,000 copies of Camera Piece of work over the course of its publication.[viii]

Past 1904, Stieglitz was over 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 arrival in Berlin, where he spent more than than a month recuperating. He spent much of the rest of 1904 photographing Germany while his family visited their relations there. On his way dorsum to the U. S. Stieglitz stopped in London and met with leaders of the Linked Ring but was unable to convince them to gear up upwardly a chapter of their organization in America (with Stieglitz every bit the director).

Going to the Start (1905) by Stieglitz

On November 25, 1905, the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession" opened on 5th Avenue with one hundred prints by thirty-nine photographers. Steichen had recommended and encouraged Stieglitz, on his render from Europe, to charter out 3 rooms beyond from Steichen's apartment that the pair felt would be perfect to exhibit photography. The gallery became an instant success, with nigh fifteen thousand visitors during its starting time season and, more importantly, impress sales that totaled near $2,800.[17] Piece of work past his friend Steichen, who had an apartment in the same building, accounted for more than half of those sales.[1]

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

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

Two months later the 42 twelvemonth-old Stieglitz met 28 year-old creative person Pamela Colman Smith, who wished to have her drawings and watercolors shown at his gallery. He decided to evidence her work because he thought it would be "highly instructive to compare drawings and photographs in order to approximate photography'due south possibilities and limitations".[17] Her testify opened in January 1907, with far more visitors to the gallery than whatever of the previous photography shows, and presently 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 carve up portfolio of his platinum prints of her work.[1]

The Steerage, 291 and mod fine 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 selection using unusual techniques, including toning, waxing and drawing on platinum prints. According to Stieglitz, it overcame "the impossibility of the camera to do certain things."[i]

He made less than $400 for the year due to failing Photographic camera Piece of work subscriptions and the gallery's low profit margin.[eight] For years, Emmy had maintained an improvident lifestyle that included a full-fourth dimension governess for Kitty and expensive European vacations. In spite of her father'south concerns almost his growing fiscal problems, the Stieglitz family and their governess over again sailed across the Atlantic.

While on his way to Europe, Stieglitz took what is recognized not simply as his signature paradigm merely also as 1 of the most important photographs of the 20th century.[19] Aiming his camera at the lower class passengers in the bow of the ship, he captured a scene he titled The Steerage. He did not publish or showroom it for four years.

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

He was asked to resign from the Camera Club, simply due to protests past other members he was reinstated equally a life member. Just later on he presented a groundbreaking bear witness of Auguste Rodin'southward drawings, his fiscal bug forced him to close the Footling Galleries for a brief period, until Feb 1908, when information technology was reopened nether the new name "291".

Stieglitz deliberately interspersed exhibitions of what he knew would exist controversial fine art, such every bit Rodin'south sexually explicit drawings, with what Steichen called "understandable art", and with photographs. The intention was to "prepare a dialogue that would enable 291 visitors to see, discuss and ponder the differences and similarities between 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 period the National Arts Club mounted a "Special Exhibition of Contemporary Art" that included photographs past Stieglitz, Steichen, Käsebier and White forth with paintings past Mary Cassatt, William Glackens, Robert Henri, James McNeill Whistler and others. This is idea to have been the commencement major show in the U.S. in which photographers were given equal ranking with painters.[20]

For most of 1908 and 1909, Stieglitz spent his time creating shows at 291 and publishing Photographic camera Work. There were no photographs taken during this period that announced in the definitive catalog of his work, Alfred Stieglitz: The Fundamental Set up.[twenty]

In May 1909, Stieglitz's begetter Edward died, and in his will he left his son the then significant sum of $10,000 (equivalent to $301,593 in 2021). Stieglitz used this new infusion of cash to keep his gallery and Photographic camera Piece of work in concern for the next several years.

During this flow, Stieglitz met Marius de Zayas, an energetic and charismatic artist from Mexico, 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's reputation as a promoter of European mod art increased, he soon was approached by several new American artists hoping to have their works shown. Stieglitz was intrigued by their modern vision, inside months Alfred Maurer, John Marin and Marsden Hartley all had their works hanging on the walls of 291.

In 1910, Stieglitz was invited past the director of the Albright Fine art Gallery to organize a major show of the best of gimmicky photography. Although an announcement of an open competition for the prove was printed in Photographic camera Work, the fact that Stieglitz would exist in accuse of information technology generated a new round of attacks confronting 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 adapt to a item mode which is and then characteristic of all exhibitions nether his auspices. One-half a generation ago this school [the Photograph-Secession] was progressive, and far in advance of its time. Today it is not progressing, just is a reactionary force of the near dangerous type."[21]

Stieglitz wrote to fellow photographer George Seeley "The reputation, not only of the Photograph-Secession, but of photography is at stake, and I intend to muster all the forces available to win out for us."[i] The exhibition opened in October with more than 600 photographs. Critics generally praised the beautiful aesthetic and technical qualities of the works. However, his critics plant that the vast majority of the prints in the evidence were from the same photographers Stieglitz had known for years and whose works he had exhibited at 291. More than five hundred of the prints came from merely thirty-vii photographers, including Steichen, Coburn, Seeley, White, F. Holland Twenty-four hours, and Stieglitz himself.

In the January 1911 edition of Photographic camera Work, Stieglitz, dismissive of what he perceived every bit commercialism, reprinted a review of the Buffalo prove with disparaging words about White and Käsebier's photos. White never forgave Stieglitz. He started his own schoolhouse of photography, and Käsebier and White co-founded the "Pictorial Photographers of America".

Throughout 1911 and early 1912, Stieglitz organized ground-breaking modern art exhibits at 291 and promoted new art along with photography in the pages of Photographic camera Work. By the summer of 1912, he was so enthralled with not-photographic art that he published an event 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 modern art pieces from 291 to the bear witness. He also agreed to exist listed as an honorary vice-president of the exhibition along with Claude Monet, Odilon Redon, Mabel Contrivance and Isabella Stewart Gardner. In February 1913, the watershed Armory Testify opened in New York, and soon modern art was a major topic of discussion throughout the city. He saw the popularity of the show as a vindication of the work that he had been sponsoring at 291 for the past 5 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 on wrote that allowing people to see both photographs and mod paintings at the aforementioned time "afforded the best opportunity to the student and public for a clearer agreement 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 also troubled by the outbreak of Earth War I for several reasons. He was concerned about the safety of family and friends in Germany. He needed to find a new printer for the photogravures for Camera Work, which had been printed in Deutschland for many years. The state of war caused a significant downturn in the American economy and art became a luxury for many people. By the end of the year, Stieglitz was struggling to keep both 291 and Photographic camera Work alive. He published the April issue of Camera Work in October, but it would be more than a year before he had the fourth dimension and resources to publish the next issue.

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

During this menses, Stieglitz became increasingly intrigued with a more mod visual aesthetics for photography. He became enlightened of what was going on in avant-garde painting and sculpture and found that pictorialism no longer represented the future – it was the by. He was influenced in role by painter Charles Sheeler and by photographer Paul Strand. In 1915, Strand, who had been coming to see 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 1 of the first to see the beauty and grace of Strand's style, and he gave Strand a major exhibit at 291. He as well devoted nigh the entire final issue of Camera Work to his photographs.

In January 1916, Stieglitz was shown a portfolio of charcoal drawings by a young artist named Georgia O'Keeffe. Stieglitz was so taken by her art that without meeting O'Keeffe or even getting her permission to prove her works he made plans to showroom her piece of work at 291. The first that O'Keeffe heard about whatsoever of this was from another friend who saw her drawings in the gallery in belatedly May of that year. She finally met Stieglitz later going to 291 and chastising him for showing her piece of work without her permission.[ane]

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 about his ain infatuation with O'Keeffe. Gradually Strand's interest waned, and Stieglitz'due south escalated. Past the summer of 1917 he and O'Keeffe were writing each other "their near private and complicated thoughts",[24] and it was clear that something very intense was developing.

The year 1917 marked the cease of an era in Stieglitz'due south life and the kickoff of some other. In part because of changing 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 go on what he had been doing for the past decade. Within the period of a few months, he disbanded what was left of the Photo-Secession, ceased publishing Camera Piece of work and closed the doors of 291. Information technology was also clear to him that his union to Emmy was over. He had finally constitute "his twin", and zilch would stand up in his way of the relationship he had wanted all of his life.

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

In early on June 1918, O'Keeffe moved to New York from Texas after Stieglitz promised he would provide her with a quiet studio where she could pigment. Within a month he took the offset of many nude photographs of her at his family's apartment while his wife Emmy was away, but she returned while their session was even so in progress. She had suspected something was going on betwixt the two for a while, and told him to stop seeing her or go out.[viii] Stieglitz left and immediately found a identify in the city where he and O'Keeffe could live together. They slept separately for more than ii weeks. Past the end of July they were in the same bed together, and by mid-Baronial when they visited Oaklawn "they were similar two teenagers in love. Several times a day they would run upward the stairs to their bedroom, so eager to make love that they would showtime taking their clothes off as they ran."[1]

Once he was out of their apartment Emmy had a change of heart. Due to the legal delays acquired past Emmy and her brothers, it would be six more years before the divorce was finalized. During this menstruum Stieglitz and O'Keeffe continued to alive together, although she would go off on her ain from fourth dimension to time to create art. Stieglitz used their times autonomously to concentrate on his photography and promotion of modernistic fine art.

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

In 1920, Stieglitz was invited past Mitchell Kennerly of the Anderson Galleries in New York to put together a major exhibition of his photographs. In early 1921, he hung the beginning ane-man exhibit of his photographs since 1913. Of the 146 prints he put on view, only 17 had been seen earlier. Twoscore-six were of O'Keeffe, including many nudes, but she was not identified as the model on any of the prints.[1] It was in the catalog for this show that Stieglitz made his famous declaration: "I was born 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 by following it with these words:

Delight NOTE: In the above STATEMENT the following, fast becoming "obsolete", terms do not appear: ART, SCIENCE, BEAUTY, RELIGION, every ISM, ABSTRACTION, Class, PLASTICITY, OBJECTIVITY, SUBJECTIVITY, Quondam MASTERS, Mod Fine art, PSYCHOANALYSIS, AESTHETICS, PICTORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY, Republic, CEZANNE, "291", PROHIBITION. The term TRUTH did creep in but it may be kicked out by any one.[25]

In 1922, Stieglitz organized a large show of John Marin's paintings and etching at the Anderson Galleries, followed by a huge auction of nearly ii hundred paintings by more than forty American artists, including O'Keeffe. Energized by this activity, he began i of his most creative and unusual undertakings – photographing a serial of cloud studies simply for their form and beauty. He said:

I wanted to photo clouds to observe out what I had learned in twoscore years nigh photography. Through clouds to put down my philosophy of life – to show that (the success of) my photographs (was) non due to subject area thing – non to special trees or faces, or interiors, to special privileges – clouds were there for anybody…[26]

By late summer he had created a serial he chosen "Music – A Sequence of Ten Cloud Photographs". Over the side by side twelve years he would take hundreds of photographs of clouds without any reference points of location or direction. These are generally recognized as the beginning intentionally abstract photographs, and they remain some of his about powerful photographs. He would come refer to these photographs as Equivalents.

Stieglitz's mother Hedwig died in Nov 1922, and as he did with his father he buried his grief in his piece of work. He spent time with Paul Strand and his new married woman Rebecca (Brook), reviewed the piece of work of another newcomer named Edward Weston and began organizing a new show of O'Keeffe's work. Her show opened in early 1923, and Stieglitz spent much of the jump marketing her work. Eventually 20 of her paintings sold for more than $3,000. In the summertime, O'Keeffe over again took off for the seclusion of the Southwest, and for a while Stieglitz was lonely 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's new lover every bit a serious threat to their human relationship she let things pass. Vi years afterward she would have her own thing with Beck Strand in New United mexican states.[27]

In 1924, Stieglitz's divorce was finally approved past a judge, and inside four months he and O'Keeffe married in a small-scale, private ceremony at Marin's house. They went home without a reception or honeymoon. O'Keeffe said later that they married in order to help soothe the troubles of Stieglitz's daughter Kitty, who at that time was beingness 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 merchandise-offs, tacitly agreed to and carried out, for the most part, without the exchange of a word. Preferring avoidance to confrontation on well-nigh issues, O'Keeffe was the principal agent of bunco in their wedlock."[27]

In the coming years O'Keeffe would spend much of her fourth dimension painting in New United mexican states, while Stieglitz rarely left New York except for summers at his father's family manor in Lake George in the Adirondacks, his favorite vacation place. O'Keeffe afterwards said "Stieglitz was a hypochondriac and couldn't be more than 50 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 first fourth dimension a major museum included photographs in its permanent collection. In the same year he was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's Progress Medal for advancing photography and received an Honorary Fellowship of the Society.[29]

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

In 1925, Stieglitz was invited past the Anderson Galleries to put together i of the largest exhibitions of American 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. But one small painting by O'Keeffe was sold during the three-week showroom.[17]

Before long after, Stieglitz was offered the continued use of ane of the rooms at the Anderson Galleries, which he used for a series of exhibitions past some of the same artists in the 7 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 side by side four years, he put together 16 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 fine art collector Duncan Phillips, who purchased several works through The Intimate Gallery.

In 1927, Stieglitz became infatuated with the 22 year-quondam Dorothy Norman, who was then volunteering at the gallery, and they fell in dearest. Norman was married and had a kid, but she came to the gallery almost every day.

O'Keeffe accustomed an offering past Mabel Dodge to become 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 as well. When Norman had a 2nd child, she was absent from the gallery for nearly two months earlier returning on a regular basis.[8] Inside a short time, they became lovers, but even after their physical affair macerated a few years later, they continued to work together whenever O'Keeffe was not effectually until Stieglitz died in 1946.

In early on 1929, Stieglitz was told that the edifice that housed the Room would be torn down later in the year. Later on a final show of Demuth's work in May, he retreated to Lake George for the summer, exhausted and depressed. The Strands raised nigh sixteen thousand dollars for a new gallery for Stieglitz, who reacted harshly, saying it was time for "immature ones" to do some of the piece of work he had been shouldering for so many years.[17] Although Stieglitz eventually apologized and accepted their generosity, the incident marked the beginning of the end of their long and close human relationship.

In the late fall, Stieglitz returned to New York. On December xv, two weeks before his sixty-fifth birthday, he opened "An American Place", the largest gallery he had ever managed. It had the first darkroom he had ever had in the urban center. Previously, he had borrowed other darkrooms or worked merely when he was at Lake George. He continued showing grouping or individual shows of his friends Marin, Demuth, Hartley, Dove and Strand for the next xvi years. O'Keeffe received at least one major exhibition each year. He fiercely controlled admission to her works and incessantly promoted her even when critics gave her less than favorable reviews. Oft during this time, they would only come across each other during the summer, when information technology was too hot in her New Mexico abode, only they wrote to each other almost weekly with the fervor of soul mates.[27]

In 1932, Stieglitz mounted a forty-yr retrospective of 127 of his works at The Identify. He included all of his almost famous photographs, but he as well purposely chose to include contempo photos of O'Keeffe, who, because of her years in the Southwest sunday, looked older than her forty-5 years, in comparing to Stieglitz'due south portraits of his young lover Norman. It was ane of the few times he acted spitefully to O'Keeffe in public, and it might take been as a upshot of their increasingly intense arguments in private about his control over her art.[27]

Later that year, he mounted a show of O'Keeffe'southward works adjacent to some amateurish paintings on drinking 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 twenty-four hour period I walked into the Photo-Secession 291 [sic] in 1907 was a cracking moment in my life… just the day I walked out of An American Place in 1932 was non less proficient. It was fresh air and personal liberation from something that had become, for me at to the lowest degree, second-rate, corrupt and meaningless."[27]

In 1936, Stieglitz returned briefly to his photographic roots by mounting one of the first exhibitions of photos past Ansel Adams in New York City. The show was successful and David McAlpin bought viii Adams photos.[xxx] He besides put on i of the first shows of Eliot Porter'south piece of work two years later. Stieglitz, considered the "godfather of modern photography", encouraged Todd Webb to develop his own style and immerse himself in the medium.[31]

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

Last years (1938–1946) [edit]

In early 1938, Stieglitz suffered a serious heart attack, one of six coronary or angina attacks that would strike him over the adjacent eight years, each of which left him increasingly weakened. During his absences, Dorothy Norman managed the gallery. O'Keeffe remained in her Southwest habitation from spring to fall of this flow.

In the summer of 1946, Stieglitz suffered a fatal stroke and went into a coma. O'Keeffe returned to New York and found Dorothy Norman was in his hospital room. She left and O'Keeffe was with him when he died.[27] According to his wishes, a simple funeral was attended by xx 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 mean solar day after the funeral, O'Keeffe took control of An American Place.[1]

Key set [edit]

Stieglitz produced more than than 2,500 mounted photographs over his career. After his death, 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 prototype, and these serial are invaluable for their insights well-nigh Stieglitz's artful composition. In 1949, she donated the get-go role of what she called the "cardinal gear up" of 1,317 Stieglitz photographs to the National Gallery of Fine art in Washington, DC. In 1980, she added to the gear up some other 325 photographs taken by Stieglitz of her, including many nudes. At present numbering 1,642 photographs, it is the largest, most consummate collection of Stieglitz's work. In 2002 the National Gallery published a two-volume, ane,012-page catalog that reproduced the consummate key set forth with detailed annotations about each photo.[20]

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

Legacy [edit]

  • Stieglitz explained in 1934:
"Personally I like my photography straight, unmanipulated, devoid of all tricks; a print not looking similar annihilation only a photograph, living through its ain inherent qualities and revealing its own spirit."[33]
  • "Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) is possibly the about important figure in the history of visual arts in America. That is certainly non to say that he was the greatest artist America has ever produced. Rather, through his many roles – equally a photographer, as 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 awe-inspiring. A photographer of genius, a publisher of inspiration, a writer of great ability, a gallery owner and exhibition organizer of both photographic and modern art exhibitions, a catalyst and a charismatic leader in the photographic and art worlds for over thirty years, he was, necessarily, a passionate, complex, driven and highly contradictory character, both prophet and martyr. The ultimate maverick, he inspired cracking honey and cracking hatred in equal measure."[xvi]
  • Eight of the nine highest prices ever paid at sale for Stieglitz photographs (every bit of 2008) are images of Georgia O'Keeffe. The highest-priced photo, a 1919 palladium impress of Georgia O'Keeffe - Easily, realized US$1.47 one thousand thousand at sale in February 2006. At the same auction, Georgia O'Keeffe - Torso, another 1919 impress, sold for $ane.36 meg.[35]
  • A large number of his works are held at the Minneapolis Constitute of Art.[36]

Gallery [edit]

  • The Hand of Homo, 1902

  • Miss Due south.R., 1905

  • Dirigible, 1910

  • Old and New New York, 1910

  • A Snapshot: Paris, 1911
    (one of ii with same title)

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

See too [edit]

  • Photography in the United States

References [edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k fifty k n o Richard Whelan (1995). Alfred Stieglitz: A Biography. NY: Piffling, Brown. pp. 11–22, 214, 281, 382, 400. ISBN0316934046.
  2. ^ Alfred Stieglitz. Camera Work. The Consummate Photographs 1903–1917. Taschen TMC Art. 1997. p. 8.
  3. ^ a b c d Hunter Drohojowska-Philp (2004). Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe . West.Westward. Norton. pp. 54–57. ISBN978-0-393-05853-6.
  4. ^ a b c d Katherine Hoffman (2004). Stieglitz: A Get-go Light. New Haven: Yale University Press Studio. pp. 55–65, 122–140, 213–222.
  5. ^ a b Weston Naef (1978). The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz: L Pioneers of Modern Photography. NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 16–48.
  6. ^ "5&A · Alfred Stieglitz – pioneer of modern photography". Victoria and Albert Museum . Retrieved March 16, 2021.
  7. ^ Alfred Stieglitz (February 1887). "A or 2 about Amateur Photography in Deutschland". The Amateur Photographer (5): 96–97.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 Club of New York". Ainslee's.
  10. ^ Christian A. Peterson (1993). Alfred Stieglitz'southward Camera Notes. NY: Norton. pp. 9–60.
  11. ^ Sadakichi Hartmann (February 1900). "The New York Photographic camera 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 (April 1902). "Exhibitions". Camera Notes: v.
  15. ^ Robert Doty (1960). Photograph-Secession: Photography as Fine Fine art. Rochester, NY: George Eastman Business firm. p. 43.
  16. ^ a b c Camera Piece of work: The Complete Photographs 1903–1917. Taschen. 2008. pp. 7, 16–18, 31–32.
  17. ^ a b c d Sarah Greenough (2000). Modernistic Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries. Washington: National Gallery of Art. pp. 26–53.
  18. ^ Joseph Keiley (Oct 1906). "The Photo-Secession Showroom at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts". Photographic camera Work: 15.
  19. ^ Weber, Eva (1994). Alfred Stieglitz. Greenwich, CT: Brompton Books Corporation. p. 6 (introduction). ISBN0-517-10332-Ten.
  20. ^ a b c d Sarah Greenough (2002). Alfred Stieglitz: The Central 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 Work and the Early Cultivation of American Modernism" (PDF). p. 13. Retrieved December eight, 2008.
  23. ^ Alfred Stieglitz (June 1913). "Notes on '291'". Camera 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 e f 1000 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". www.rps.org. Archived from the original on March x, 2016. Retrieved May fifteen, 2018.
  30. ^ Grayness, Andrea (1982). Ansel Adams: An American Place, 1936. Tucson: Middle for Creative Photography.
  31. ^ Staff writer (2010). "Todd Webb (1905–2000)". Luxury Bazaar. Archived from the original on December 31, 2010. Retrieved October 12, 2010. Webb shortly developed his ain unique way of photographing and was farther encouraged past Alfred Stieglitz, the often considered "Godfather of modern photography," to immerse himself in the medium.
  32. ^ "Alfred Stieglitz Key Set". www.nga.gov . Retrieved September three, 2019.
  33. ^ Quoted by Dorothy Norman in Aperture 3#2 (1955) pp. 12-16 > online
  34. ^ Whelan, Richard (2000). Stieglitz on Photography: His Selected Essays and Notes. NY: Discontinuity. p. 9.
  35. ^ Photo sale breaks world record Archived February 26, 2009, at the Wayback Automobile
  36. ^ "artist:"Alfred Stieglitz" | Minneapolis Plant of Art". Retrieved February 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. i (nine): nine–x.
  • Voorhies, James. "Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) and His Circle." 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 Firm: Alfred Stieglitz Drove
  • Alfred Stieglitz at the Fine art Institute of Chicago
  • PBS website on Stieglitz
  • Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O'Keeffe Archive at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University
  • The Art of the Photogravure: Fundamental Figures
  • The two most costly Stieglitz photos, 2006
  • Katherine Hoffman, "Alfred Stieglitz: A Legacy of Light",(Yale University Press, 2011), ISBN 0-300-13445-2
  • Autochromes by Alfred Stieglitz from Mark Jacobs Collection
  • Autochromes by Alfred Stieglitz from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Alfred Stieglitz at Detect a Grave
  • Guide to the Stieglitz-Mathieu Correspondence 1943–1945 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center

jonessprione.blogspot.com

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

Post a Comment for "Discuss Two Ways That Alfred Stieglitz Helped Advanced Art"