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Alfred Stieglitz and Camera Work - |
March 2009 |
Alfred Stieglitz, Esq.by Alvin Langdon Coburn, Camera Work,
January 1908, 21:15
Camera Work
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Alfred Stieglitz, photographer,
editor, writer, and gallery owner, was an integral figure in the development
of 20th century photography and modern art in America at the turn-of-the-century.
Born in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1864, Stieglitz became fascinated with photography
at an early age. His father Edward, a prosperous wool merchant, was able
to educate his children abroad. In 1882, Alfred enrolled in the Technische
Hochschule in Berlin where he studied photochemistry. He was influenced
by the work of the noted British photographer Peter Henry Emerson (1856-1936)
who pioneered the use of the platinum paper and the photogravure. Stieglitz
returned to New York in 1892 after ten years abroad and quickly gained notoriety
for his work. In 1902 he organized the Photo Secession in reaction to the
conservatism prevalent in the Camera Club of New York. He worked with prominent
photographers of the day, among them Edward Steichen, Gerturde Kasebier,
Clarence H. White, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Annie Brigman, and Frank Eugene,
to promote the photograph as art. The 1903 inception of the magazine, Camera
Work, grew out of this experience.1
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Click on an image for a larger view
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Photograph of Portrait - Gertrude Stein by Pablo Picasso, Camera
Work, June 1913, Special Number |
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Stieglitz's influence
on both photography and art is best seen in microcosm through the magazine,
Camera Work, in which he championed the medium as a means of artistic
self expression on par with the fine arts. Camera Work served as
a forum for criticism as well, publishing early writing on photography.
By 1910, Stieglitz began to use the pages of Camera Work to reproduce
works of modern art by Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, Rodin, and van
Gogh. Additionally, he brought forth the first American publication of Gertrude
Stein in 1912, who wrote about Matisse and Picasso. In this way Camera
Work served as the starting point for modern art in America three years
prior to the Armory Show. The Armory Show was, in itself, a pivotal moment
in the history of American art. Held at New York's 69th Regiment Armory,
this exhibition included more than 1,200 works by contemporary American
and European artists. Steiglitz was both a lender to, and patron of, the
exhibition.
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of reproducing images of the highest quality in Camera Work. As he
wrote in a column entitled "An Apology" from the premier issue
of the magazine in 1903, "Photography being in the main a process in
monochrome, it is on subtle gradations in tone and value that its artistic
beauty so frequently depends. It is, therefore, highly necessary that reproductions
of photographic work must be made with exceptional care and discretion if
the spirit of the originals is to be retained, though no reproductions can
do full justice to the subtleties of some photographs."2
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Winter, Fifth Avenue (1892) by Alfred Stieglitz, Camera Work
October 1905, 12:7 |
The Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession by Alfred Stieglitz,
Camera Work, April 1906, 14:42
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Throughout the pages of Camera Work,
Stieglitz promoted his gallery of the Photo-Secession, 291, by publishing
reviews of exhibitions, work by artists featured there, as well as photographs
of exhibitions.
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Founded in 1905 with Edward Steichen, the gallery, located on the top floor
of 291 Fifth Avenue, was initially intended to promote photography as an
independent art form. The Gallery went on to exhibit works by notable contemporary
European and American artists including Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso,
Dove, Marin, O'Keeffe and Hartley, who described 291 as "the largest
small room of its kind in the world."3
In 1917, the building that housed 291 was scheduled for demolition forcing
Stieglitz to close the gallery; Camera Work ceased publication the
same year. By 1918 Stieglitz began spending summers in Lake George, New
York and in 1924 he married Georgia O'Keeffe. Stieglitz continued to promote
photography and modern art through his galleries while increasing concentration
on his own work until his death in 1946.
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1The Dictionary of Art, s.v."Stieglitz,
Alfred."
2Alfred Stieglitz, "An Apology," Camera Work 1 (1903): 15.
3The Dictionary of Art, s.v."291."
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