converts the picture plane into a two-dimensional design.

body of forceful work was created under the banner of

A new interest in realism also emerged to herald the con- aesthetic photography. Both the seriousness of purpose
cern with straight photography and modernist style that and the efforts by the movement to erase the division be-
would engage the next generation of photographers. tween the way critics and the public viewed images made
entirely by hand and those produced by a machine ha\""
Pictorialism was an instrument that enabled the aesthetic continued to be vital concepts that still engage photog-
photograph to be regarded as a persuasive expression of raphers and graphic artists alike.
personal temperament and choice. Despite misguided at-
tempts to emulate traditional paintings and works ofgraphic
art, despite disagreements about the qualities that give
Profile: Alfred Stieglitz
the photographic prints their unique character, and despite Alfred Stieglitz proclaimed his belief in the uniquen=
many images that now seem hackneyed and uninspired, a of his native heritage in a credo written for an exhibition

401. ALFRED STIEGLITZ.

Sun)s Rays- Paula) Berlin
Gelatin silver print.
Art In stitute of Chicago:
Alfred Stieglitz Collecrioc.

H2 ART PHOTOGRAPHY
 402. ALFRED STI EGLITZ.
The Steerage, 19 07.
Gravure print.
Private Collection.

work in 1921: "I was born in Hoboken. 1 am an mainly by photography and by other visual art, although he
ocan. Photography is my passion. The search for continued an interest in science, music, and literature.
- .n:h my obscssion."36 Nevertheless, as a body, his images Sun'sRays-Paula, Berlin (pl. mJ. 4lJ/), a study made in Ber-
est a complexity of influences and sources of which lin by Stieglitz in 1889, reveals a fascination with the role of
- _'unerican component was at fIrst the least marked. The light and with the replicative possibilities of photography,
.Idest of six children of a part-Jewish German family that as well as an understanding of how to organize forms to
":.>d emigrated to the United States in 1849, Stieglitz spent express feeling.
youth in a comfortable milieu that placed unusual After almost ten years abroad, during which his ability
anphasis on education, culture, and attainment. Taken to as a photographer had become recognized, Stieglitz re-
Grnnany in 1881 to complete his education, he enrolled in a turned to New York City in 1890 and became a partner in
oourse in photochemisfty given by the eminent Dr. Her- the Photochrome Engraving Company. He soon fmUld
=nIl Wilhelm Vogel; from then on he was absorbed himself more interested in campaigns to promote the rec-

ART PHOTOGRAPHY III

 4-03. ALFRED STIEGLITZ.
Equivalent) 1929. Gelatin
silver print. Art Institute
of Chicago; Alfred
Stieglitz Collection.

ognition of photography as a means of artistic expression, with the New York Dada movement through the jOtIIT1"-
working at first as editor of the journal American Amateur 291 and the Modern Gallery.
Photographer, then through the Camera Club of New York In his development as a photographer, Stieglitz be
and its periodical Camera Notes, and fmally through the to draw upon the urban scene for his subjects shortly afu::
Photo-Secession and Camera Work, which he published and his return to New York in 1890 (pl. no. 312). At the time.
edited from 1903 to 1917. Besides organizing and judging his motifs were considered inappropriate for artistic tr=-
national exhibitions of Pictorialist photography, Stieglitz ment in photography even though Realist and Impressioc-
presided, until 1917, over 291, the Photo-Secession gallery, ist painters in Europe had been dealing with similar materu..
where, along with Steichen and, later, with Paul Haviland for over 40 years. As his personal style evolved, the infb-
and Marins de Zayas, he helped awaken the American ence of German fin-dc-sude painting, of the Japanese woo:
public and critics to modern European movements in the block, and of Symbolist and Cubist (pl. no. 4IJ2) CUIT
visual arts. He was in contact for a brief period in 1915 became visibly interwoven into coherently structured an.:.

334 ART PHOTOGRAPHY

 -...-ing images that seem to embody the reality of their Feeling incomplete without a gallery or publication,
. Following the closing of the gallery and journal in between 1917 and 1925 Stieglitz used rooms at the
~ ~ Stieglitz turned full attention to his own work- a Anderson Galleries to promote the work of a circle of
:l.Uly-faceted portrait of his wife-to -be, the painter American modernists in painting and photography that
:icorgia O'Keeffe. In the early 1920S, he undertook what comprised, besides himself, Arthur Dove, Marsden
:c called Equivalents (pl. no. 403) -images of clouds and Hartley, John Marin , O 'Keeffe, and Strand. The Intimate
made to demonstrate, he claimed, that in visual art, Gallery opened in 1925, lasted four years, and was followed
rID, and not specific subject matter, conveys emotional by An American Place, which endured until his death in
-; psychological meaning. Another series from later 1946. Aside from exhibitions of his own work, only four of
'CUS consists of views of New York skyscrapers taken photography were held between 1925 and 1946, suggesting
-om the window of his room in the Shelton Hotel (pl. no. tI,at his interest in the medilun had become parochial.
__ , which incorporate abstract patterns of light and Stieglitz's career spanned the transition from the Vic-
- dow that express the f:lscination and the loathing that torian to the modern world, and his sensibilities reflected
-<: had come to feel for the city. this amplitude of experience. His creative contribution,

404. ALFRED STIEGLITZ.

From the Shelto1l WestlVnrd-
New York , 1931-32. Gelatin
silver print. Philadelphia
Museum of Art; lent b)'
Dorothy Nonnan.

ART PHOTOGRAPHY 335

405. CLA.R£NCE H. WHITE. Ri'ng Toss, 1899. Platinum print. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

336 ART PHOTOGRAPHY

 ed up by Theodore Dreiser in [899 as a "desire to do ties, themes that also attracted a number of the painters of
dUngs" in order to express "the sentiment and tcnder the time, including William Merritt Chase and John Singer
.' in subjects previously thought devoid of chann,"37 Sargent (pl. no. 4<16). D espite his preference for genre and
-- conjoined to a great sense of mission. While not allegorical subjects, White's camera images rarely are hack-
~e) his efforts to improve me way photographs were neyed or sentimental. His receptivity to a variety of aes·
ted at exhibitions and reproduced in periodicals were thetic influences-the art of Japan, the Pre-Raphaelites,
. ly effective in the campaign for the recognition of the Whistler, and Art N ouveau- which had reached middle
=cn>graph as an art object, while his openness to new America in contemporary magazine illustration, may ac-
ibilities enabled him to inttoduce Americans to Euro- count for the captivating freshness of his vision.
modernism and to the avant-garde styles o f native Working full-time as an accountant for a wholesale
. In both roles-as expressive photographer and im- grocery firm, White still found opportunities for his own
= r io-he probably has had a more profound influence photography and time to promote Pictorialism in the
me course of aesthetic photography in America than Newark (Ohio) Camera Club. Shortly before [900, he
other single individual. joined with Day, Kiisebier, and Stieglitz in organizing and
jurying the major American exhibitions of Pictorialist
u: Clarence H. White photography. During his lifetime, he showed work in
more than 4 0 national and international exhibitions, fre-
O arence H. White may be considered the archetypal quently garnering top honors and critical acclaim. In [906,
.::orialist photographer of the U nited States. Neither two years after leaving his job to devote himself entirely to
yant in personality nor bohemian in taste, he his mediunl, he moved his family to New York City in the
~ed from a background of hardworking midwestern hope that it might be more possible to earn a living in
:mcialism to create works of lmusual artistic sensitivity photography. A year later, White began to teach, first at
" sweet compassion, with the people and places of his Columbia University, then at the Brooklyn Institute of
te surroundings as subjects. His best images, among Arts and Sciences, and fmally at his own Clarence White
Rillg Toss (pl. 110. 4<JS), reveal a perceptive appreciation School of Photography, which he fowlded in [914. Among
~ special qualities of domestici ty and feminine activi- his celebrated students were Margaret Bourke· White,
Anton Bruehl, Laura Gilpin, D orothea Lange, Paul Outer-
bridge, Ralph Steiner, and Doris Ulmann, attesting to the
marked influence of this school on many photographers
of the next generation.
During White's first years in New York, he and Stieglitz
collaborated on a series of nude studies, exemplified by a
sensuous image of Miss Thompson (pl. 110. 407), but on the
whole, White's creativi ty did not flourish in the city, be-
cause of the time and energy required to pursue a teaching
career and manage a school. Although his contributions to
Pictorialism were recognized by Stieglitz when the latter
assigned him a special gallery in the [910 "International
Exhibition of Pictorial Photography" in Buffalo, the rela-
tionship between the two started to deteriorate as Stieglitz
identified White with Pictorialist themes and styles he now
considered repetitive and insipid. In [9[6, White joined
with other disaffected Secessionists to form The Pictorial
Photographers of America, hoping thereby to support aes·
thetic photography while keeping alive the group idea,
which to his mind had been one of the appealing aspects of
the Photo-Secession.
Toward the 1920 S, White's images began to reflect
some of the changes in outlook occasioned by American
- lOH~ SINGE R SARGENT. The Daughters of Edward
3.;. 1882. Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts,
awareness of modernist trends in art, but in 1925, before he
" "......0;- gift of Mary Louise Bait, Jane Hubbart Bait, could integrate the new vision into his own refmed sensi-
lulia (A-ering Bait, in memory of their father. bility, he died while accompanying a student expedition to

ART PHOTOGRAPHY 337