More Photos By ALFRED STIEGLITZ... 1, 2

 

Alfred Stieglitz, American, 1864-1946

Alfred Stieglitz is often called the father of modern photography because of his driving force in the fight to have photography recognized as an art form. Camera Work was one of the greatest accomplishments of Stieglitz in his mission to bring the level of photographic art in the United States up to the level of work being produced in England and Europe. After leaving The Camera Club, New York and the editor's position of Camera Notes in 1903, Stieglitz pulled together the leading photographers of the day who were committed to making photographs as forms of art. He formed a new organization called the Photo-Secession, and exhibited members photographs at his gallery, "291", and published their photographs in his own magazine which he called Camera Work.

Camera Work reproduced photographs by Kasebier, Steichen, Stieglitz, White, and other leading photographers in high quality photogravure. The editions were small and the reproductions were remarkably faithful to the original print, both in tone and texture. Stieglitz described the photogravures as "suitable for framing." Camera Work was also a leader in printing critical thought on art by George Bernard Shaw, Gertrude Stein, Sadakichi Hartmann, and Mabel Dodge. Stieglitz championed the work of early modernist painters, and reproduced paintings by Picasso, Cezanne, Rodin, Marin, and Matisse.

Among his other achievements, Stieglitz was a member of the Society of Amateur Photographers in 1891 (which became the N.Y. Camera Club in 1897), and he was the first American to be elected to The Linked Ring (1894). With twelve others he established the Photo-Secession, serving as director in 1902, and he received more than 150 medals and awards; among them the Progress Medal of RPS (1924), Townsend Harris Medal (1927), Honorary Fellowship of the Photographic Society of America (1940) and P.H. Emerson Award (1887).

 

Bibliography:

Jay Bochner, An American Lens: Scenes from Alfred Stieglitz s New York Secession, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2005.

Doris Bry, Alfred Stieglitz: Photographer, New York: New York Graphic Society, 1965.

Graham Clarke, Alfred Stieglitz, New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 2006.

Daniell Cornell, Alfred Stieglitz and the Equivalent: Reinventing the Nature of Photography, New Haven, CT: Yale University Art Gallery, 1999.

Waldo Frank, Lewis Mumford, Dorothy Norman, Paul Rosenfeld, Harold Rugg, America & Alfred Stieglitz, Mechanicsburg, PA: The Literary Guild, 1934.

Sarah Greenough, Juan Hamilton, Alfred Stieglitz: Photographs and Writings, New York: Callaway Editions, 1983.

Sarah Greenough, et al., Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and his New York Galleries, Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2000.

Sarah Greenough, Alfred Stieglitz, Volumes 1 1886-1922, Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art; New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2002.

Sarah Greenough, Aflred Stieglitz, Volume 2 1923-1937, National Gallery of Art, Washington and Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2002

William Innes Homer, Alfred Stieglitz and the American Avant-Garde, New York: Little, Brown & Co, 1977.

William Innes Homer, Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession, New York: New York Graphic Society, Boston: Little Brown, 1983.

Therese Mulligan, Eugenia Parry, and Laura Downey, The Photography of Alfred Stieglitz: Georgia O Keefes Enduring Legacy, Rochester, NY: George Eastman House, 2000.

Weston J. Naef, The Art of Seeing: Photographs from the Alfred Stieglitz Collection, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978.

Weston J. Naef, The Collection Of Alfred Stieglitz: Fifty Pioneers Of Modern Photography, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978.

Dorothy Norman, Alfred Stieglitz: A Talk ( Center for Creative Photography ), Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1976.

Alfred Stieglitz, Alfred Stieglitz: Camera Work: The Complete Illustrations 1903-1917, Koln, Germany: Taschen Books, 1997.

John Szarkowski, Alfred Stieglitz at Lake George, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995.