key to the recognition of photography as an important art form in America
Movement: American Modernist, Pictorialist, Photo-Secession
Training: Berlin Technische Hochschule: engineering & chemistry (Herman W. Vogel)
Biography: born Hoboken, NJ, 1881 moved to Berlin to study; 1890 returned to NY, partner in photo engraving business, by 1895 devotes himself to photography full-time. 1890s: Interested in capturing spontaneous photos of NYC. Became a leader in straight, unmanipulated photography. Composed images w/camera rather than cropping in darkroom, light effects w/camera rather than manipulating negative. 1891-1901: leadership role in Camera Club.
1900s: 1902 created progressive group Photo-Secession w/Steichen & others devoted to exhibiting US photography. 1905 opened Little Galleries of Photo-Secession at 291 Fifth Ave. 1909: summer in Europe meeting Matisse & Gertrude Stein; 1910s: 1911: hosts Picasso’s 1st solo exhibit in the world at 291. 1917 closed 291, cont promoting modernism through other galleries.
1920s: m. Georgia O’Keefe, subject of 1 of his most interesting portrait series 1925-34: Equivalents (cloud series). 1925-29: The Intimate Gallery. 1929: opens American Place.
1930s: series documenting NY as it was transformed by skyscrapers. His series of photographs of O’Keefe & Dorothy Norman: 1st to see artistic potential in isolated body parts. 1937, retired, major exhibition of his work at Cleveland Museum of Art.
Movement: American Modernist, Pictorialist, Photo-Secession
Training: Berlin Technische Hochschule: engineering & chemistry (Herman W. Vogel)
Biography: born Hoboken, NJ, 1881 moved to Berlin to study; 1890 returned to NY, partner in photo engraving business, by 1895 devotes himself to photography full-time. 1890s: Interested in capturing spontaneous photos of NYC. Became a leader in straight, unmanipulated photography. Composed images w/camera rather than cropping in darkroom, light effects w/camera rather than manipulating negative. 1891-1901: leadership role in Camera Club.
1900s: 1902 created progressive group Photo-Secession w/Steichen & others devoted to exhibiting US photography. 1905 opened Little Galleries of Photo-Secession at 291 Fifth Ave. 1909: summer in Europe meeting Matisse & Gertrude Stein; 1910s: 1911: hosts Picasso’s 1st solo exhibit in the world at 291. 1917 closed 291, cont promoting modernism through other galleries.
1920s: m. Georgia O’Keefe, subject of 1 of his most interesting portrait series 1925-34: Equivalents (cloud series). 1925-29: The Intimate Gallery. 1929: opens American Place.
1930s: series documenting NY as it was transformed by skyscrapers. His series of photographs of O’Keefe & Dorothy Norman: 1st to see artistic potential in isolated body parts. 1937, retired, major exhibition of his work at Cleveland Museum of Art.
Influences: P.H.Emerson who promoted a progressive approach to photography that allowed the medium to serve artistic expression; Emerson played crucial role in phot0gravure techniques. Stieglitz’s early pictorial work shows an interest in emulating the aesthetics and expressive potential of painting through photography (esp. w/photogravure’s rich variation of tones) ; Impressionist (focus on natural effects such as snow, steam, light and atmospheric qualities)
Key Works: The Terminal, 1893. The Hand of Man, 1902. The Flatiron, 1903. The Steerage, 1907. City of Ambition, 1910. Georgia O’Keefe, 1918. Equivalent, 1925.
Legacy: Key to the development of photography and it’s establishment as a recognized art form. Introduced European modernism (& African Art) to America at 291. Picasso, Rodin, Matisse, & Cezanne 1st debutes in US at the gallery. And of course, he launched O’Keefe’s career.
Key Works: The Terminal, 1893. The Hand of Man, 1902. The Flatiron, 1903. The Steerage, 1907. City of Ambition, 1910. Georgia O’Keefe, 1918. Equivalent, 1925.
Legacy: Key to the development of photography and it’s establishment as a recognized art form. Introduced European modernism (& African Art) to America at 291. Picasso, Rodin, Matisse, & Cezanne 1st debutes in US at the gallery. And of course, he launched O’Keefe’s career.
Equivalents is a series of photographs of clouds taken from 1925 to 1934. They are generally recognized as the first photographs intended to free the subject matter from literal interpretation, and are some of the first completely abstract photographic works of art.
The Hand of Man, 1902.
A locomotive engine steams toward the camera on its barely visible tracks, wearing a billowing black cloud of smoke as a plumed hat. The crisscrossing lines of the tracks beside it snake off toward the horizon, and the telephone poles at left appear to be making the same march. Stieglitz’ composition is a “treatise on the importance of the machine in the modern industrial age.”
As gallerist and editor of the photographic journals Camera Notes and Camera Work, Stieglitz was a major force in the promotion and elevation of photography as a fine art in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His own photographs had an equally revolutionary impact on the advancement of the medium.
The Hand of Man was first published in January 1903 in the inaugural issue of Camera Work. With this image of a lone locomotive chugging through the train yards of Long Island City, Stieglitz showed that a gritty urban landscape could have an atmospheric beauty and a symbolic value as potent as those of an unspoiled natural landscape. The title alludes to this modern transformation of the landscape and also perhaps to photography itself as a mechanical process. Stieglitz believed that a mechanical instrument such as the camera could be transformed into a tool for creating art when guided by the hand and sensibility of an artist.[see Getty http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=106162]
Additional Materials:
“Stieglitz and the New York Art Scene” (1905-46), Metropolitan Museum of Art video accompanying exhibition.
New York City by Alfred Stieglitz, slide show
Artstory synopsis
As gallerist and editor of the photographic journals Camera Notes and Camera Work, Stieglitz was a major force in the promotion and elevation of photography as a fine art in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His own photographs had an equally revolutionary impact on the advancement of the medium.
The Hand of Man was first published in January 1903 in the inaugural issue of Camera Work. With this image of a lone locomotive chugging through the train yards of Long Island City, Stieglitz showed that a gritty urban landscape could have an atmospheric beauty and a symbolic value as potent as those of an unspoiled natural landscape. The title alludes to this modern transformation of the landscape and also perhaps to photography itself as a mechanical process. Stieglitz believed that a mechanical instrument such as the camera could be transformed into a tool for creating art when guided by the hand and sensibility of an artist.[see Getty http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=106162]
Additional Materials:
“Stieglitz and the New York Art Scene” (1905-46), Metropolitan Museum of Art video accompanying exhibition.
New York City by Alfred Stieglitz, slide show
Artstory synopsis