#14 Alfred Stieglitz

Reflection - Venice, c. 1897

A vital force in the development of modern art in America, Alfred Stieglitz's (born 1864, New Jersey—died 1946, New York) significance lies as much in his work as an art dealer, exhibition organizer, publisher, and editor as it does in his career as a photographer. He is credited with spearheading the rise of modern photography in America in the early years of the twentieth century, publishing the periodical Camera Work (1903-17) and forming the exhibition society, the Photo-Secession. He also ran a series of influential galleries, starting with 291, which he used not only to exhibit photography, but also to introduce European modernist painters and sculptors to America and to foster America's own modernist figures - including his later wife, Georgia O'Keeffe. Insistent that photography warranted a place among the fine arts, Stieglitz's own work showed great technical mastery of tone and texture and reveled in exploring atmospherics. In later years, influenced in part by Cubism and other trends, he became interested in straight photography, favoring more clarity and less lush effects.

The Steerage, 1915

Georgia O'Keeffe, 1918

Georgia O'Keeffe, 1918

When Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe met, in 1915, he was a celebrated photographer who promoted modern art through his publications and galleries and she, 23 years his junior, was just beginning to gain recognition as a painter. A few years later they entered into a passionate affair, and they eventually married in 1924. Stieglitz felt revitalized by the relationship, and in a growing fascination with seriality he produced over 300 photographs of O’Keeffe to form a kind of composite portrait: in front of her paintings, in isolated fragments, and in the intimate poses of a paramour, as seen here. In 1921 Stieglitz exhibited a print of this image at the Anderson Galleries in New York, in a one-person show that included some 40 portraits of O’Keeffe. Years later, when O’Keeffe looked back at the pictures, she remarked, “It is as if in my one life I have lived many lives.”