Avant-garde Modernist photography Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession

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Avant-garde Modernist photographyAlfred
Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession

• In an unprecedented show for the National Arts
  Club New York in 1902, Stieglitz brought
  together photographs by pictorialists. He
  titled the exhibition The Photo-Secession, to
  indicate a revolt from hackneyed style and
  technique as well as from lax artistic
  standards.
• Alan Trachtenberg, notes to
• Pictorial Photography by Alfred Stieglitz

1902 publication
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Clarence White (American, 1871-1925) Portrait of
Alfred Stieglitz, 1908gum platinum print
Stieglitz, photograph of Fountain, by Marcel
Duchamp,1917


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(left) Alfred Stieglitz, 291--Picasso-Braque
Exhibition, 1915, platinum print(right)
Stieglitz at the Little Galleries of
Photo-Secession ('291')291 Fifth Avenue, New
York, opened in 1905
291 gallery was in the apartment vacated by
Edward Steichen, who designed and decorated the
exhibition space.
Cubist collages exhibited with African sculpture
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• Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946), Watching
  for the Return, 1894, photogravure for Camera
  Notes, quarterly publication of the New York
  Camera Club

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Stieglitz, Fifth Avenue, Winter, 1892, gelatin
dry plate

• My picture, Fifth Avenue, Winter, is the result
  of a three hours stand during a fierce snow-storm
  on February 22nd, 1893, awaiting the proper
  moment. I remember how upon having developed
  the negative of the picture I showed it to some
  of my colleagues. They smiled and advised me to
  throw away such rot. Such were the remarks made
  about what I knew was a piece of work quite out
  of the ordinary, in that it was the first attempt
  at picture making with the hand camera in such
  adverse and trying circumstances from a
  photographic point of view.
• Stieglitz, The Hand Camera Its Present
  Importance, 1897

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• Alfred Stieglitz, A Bit of Venice, 1894,
  photogravure
• for Camera Notes, quarterly publication of the
  New York Camera Club

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• THE PHOTOGRAVURE PROCESS
• Invented by Karel Klí in 1879, photogravure is a
  photomechanical process (heliogravure in French)
  using an etching method to reproduce the
  appearance of a continuous range of tones in a
  photograph.
• Alvin Langdon Coburn (British working in the US
  and Britain,1882-1966)
• Self-Portrait, ca. 1908, photgravure

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Hiroshige Ando, Plum Estate, Kameido, 1857,
woodblock print

• Stieglitz, Flatiron Building, 1902, photogravure.

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Alfred Stieglitz, The Hand of Man, photogravure
From Camera Work No. 1. February 1903(right)
Claude Monet, Saint-Lazare Station,
1877Pictorialism and Impressionism
In 1903 Stieglitz launched, edited and published
Camera Work - a magazine which became world
famous and continued publication until 1917 (50
issues). Cover by Edward Steichen is in the Arts
Crafts aesthetic of William Morris.
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• "There were men and women and children on the
  lower deck of the steerage.... I longed to escape
  from my surroundings and join them.... A round
  straw hat, the funnel leaning left, the stairway
  leaning right.... round shapes of iron
  machinery... I saw a picture of shapes and
  underlying that, the feeling I had about life..."
  
• Stieglitz

• Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage, 1907, photogravure

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As analytic cubism emerged, Alfred Stieglitz,
who was still championing pre-modernist
Phot-Secession Pictorialism, underwent a
transformation in his aesthetic
thinking. Hirsch
Picasso, Ma Jolie, 1911 Analytic Cubism
Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage, 1907, photogravure
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• There were two stages in his life at first he
  produced somewhat romanticized pictures of an
  Impressionistic style, then later moving over to
  realism of a high order.
• Robert Leggett
• A History of Photography

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• The Pictorialists played on photography's
  ability to recall memories and associations, yet
  they also recognized that such memories are
  rarely sharply defined but more often dreamlike
  and indistinct, composed of nothing more than a
  small incident or passing glance.

• Edward Steichen (Luxembourgeois-born American
  Photographer, 1879-1973), Flatiron Building,
  1907, cyanotype - gum bichromate - platinum print
• Pictorialism / Photo-Secession

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Reinforcing the idea of a singular masterpiece,
the pictorialists manipulated their images so
extensively in the darkroom that, often, the
result was a unique image that could not be
duplicated.

• Edward Steichen, Self-Portrait with Brush and
  Palette, 1902, gum bichromate

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• Edward Steichen (18791973) Moonrise
  Mamaroneck, New York, 1904, New York, Museum of
  Modern Art, platinum, cyanotype, and
  ferroprussiate print, 15¼ 19". Gift of the
  photographer.

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Edward Steichen, The Pond Moonlight, 1904, New
York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art multiple
gum bichromate over platinum, 15¼ 19". This
print was auctioned in New York in February 2006
and sold for the highest price to date for an art
photograph.
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Steichen made three prints of this image of a
pond on Long Island.

• Steichen and Stieglitz were ardent advocates of
  photography-as-art, but it wasn't until 1910 that
  the first photography collection was bought by a
  respected American museum, the Albright-Knox Art
  Gallery in Buffalo. The New York Museum of Modern
  Art didn't mount an exhibition of photography
  until 1937.

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• Edward Steichen, Rodin - the Thinker, 1902, gum
  bichromate

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• For practically the first time in photography,
  the specificity and individuality of the objects
  in front of the camera were of no importance, but
  were only a vehicle for the expression of an
  idea. By divorcing photography from its
  scientific heritage, pictorial photographers also
  divorced it from reality.

• Edward Steichen, The Big White Cloud, Lake
  George, 1903. Carbon print
• Pictorialism / Photo-Secession

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• Gertrude Käsebier (American Photographer,
  1852-1934)
• Blessed Art Thou among Women, 1899. Platinotype
• Pictorialism / Photo-Secession

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• Gertrude Käsebier, Widow, ca. 1905, platinotype.

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To name an object is to suppress three-quarters
of the enjoyment to be found in the poem .. .
suggestion, that is the dream. Stéphane
Mallarmé French Symbolist poet
J.M. Cameron, 1865

• Gertrude Käsebier, Manger, ca. 1905, platinotype
• Pictorialism / Photo-Secession

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• Clarence H. White (American, 1871-1925), Untitled
  (Nude Study), 1906-09 platinotype
• Pictorialism / Photo-Secession

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• Clarence H. White, Raindrops, 1902, platinotype.

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Stieglitz's Portrait of Georgia O'Keeffe
(American painter 1887 - 1986) whom he exhibited
and met in 1917, married in 1924.(right)
OKeefe, Drawing XIII, 1915, charcoal on paper
24 3/8 x 18 1/2 in. Stieglitz exhibited this
series of drawings and paintings by OKeefe at
291 in 1917

• Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, 1918.
  Platinotype, one of the series of 300 taken
  between 1917 and 1933 that comprise Stieglitzs
  portrait of OKeefe

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Georgia O'Keeffe, Large Dark Red Leaf on White,
1925

• Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia OKeeffe, 1920,
  Gelatin Silver Print

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• (left) Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia OKeeffe -
  Hands, 1919. Palladiotype
• (right) Auguste Rodin (French sculptor,1840-1917,
  Hand, bronze, 1886
• Stieglitzs aesthetic of fragmentation, his
  composite portrait (300 parts) of OKeefe is
  influenced by Rodin, Brancusi, Picasso, and other
  modern artists he exhibited in 291 gallery.

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In 1922, Stieglitz turned to nature and back to
Symbolist theory, isolating the sky as a
surrogate heart.

• Alfred Stieglitz, Clouds, Music No. 1, Lake
  George, palladium print. 1922.

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• Alfred Stieglitz, Songs of the Sky, 1924. GSP.

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• Alfred Stieglitz, Equivalent, 1929. GSP
• Abstract photography

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• Stieglitz believed that his Equivalents were the
  pure expression of his inner state of being.
• He rarely, if ever, explained in words what
  actual feelings or emotions were present when
  particular pictures were made, however. He
  expected that his audience would have an
  intuitive perception of their meaning that was
  parallel to the instinct that caused them to be
  created.
• - The Getty Museum

• Alfred Stieglitz, Equivalent, 1931. Gsp.

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• AMERICAN SOCIAL DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY
• Jacob Riis

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Jacob Riis (American, born Denmark 1849 1914)
Five Cents Lodging, Bayard Street, c. 1889
We cannot get rid of the tenements that shelter
two million souls in New York today, but we can
set about making them at least as nearly fit to
harbor human souls as might be."  Jacob
Riis, The Making of an American
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Jacob Riis was one of my truest and closest
friends. I have ever prized the fact that once,
in speaking of me, he said, since I met him he
has been my brother. I have not only admired and
respected him beyond measure, but I have loved
him dearlyand I mourn him as if he were one of
my own family." -Theodore Roosevelt
Introduction to Making of An American
Jacob Riis, Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen 1904
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Jacob A. Riis, Bandits' Roost, Mulberry Street,
1888, gelatin silver print
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Lewis Hine
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• Lewis Hine (American 1874-1940), Young Russian
  Jewess,
• Ellis Island, New York, 1905. Gsp.

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Ellis Island Series Hine had to set up his 5 x
7 view camera on its tripod, focus the camera,
pull the slide, dust his flash pan with powder,
and, because of the language barrier, indicate
through his own look and gesture the desired pose
and expression. The flash pan exploded and an
exposure was made, producing a blinding cloud of
smoke. Hine would then pack up and leave one
shot was all he had.

• Lewis Hine, Italian Family Looking for Lost
  Baggage - Ellis Island , 1905. Gsp.

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• Ever the Human Document to keep the
• present and future in touch with the past.
• - Lewis Hine

• Lewis Hine, East European Jewish immigrant,
  Ellis Island series, 1905

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Lewis Hine, Handicapped - Crippled Steelworker,
Pittsburgh, ca 1908-1909. Gsp.From The Pittsburg
Survey commissioned by Charities and the
Commons(See Trachtenberg, Lewis Hine The World
of His Art)
The dictum, then, of the social worker is Let
there be light and in this campaign for light
we have for our advance agent the light writer
the photograph. Lewis Hine, Social
Photography
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• Lewis Hine, Italian immigrant, East Side, New
  York City. 1910. Gsp.
• Honoré Daumier, Laundress on the Quai d'Anjou,
  c.1860, oil on wood panel, 11 x 8

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Hines best known and most effective pictures
were of child laborers in many industries across
the country. As staff photographer for the
National Child Labor Committee beginning in
1908, Hine traveled thousands of miles,
gathering visual evidence of violations of child
labor laws. Alan Trachtenberg, notes for
Hines essay, Social Photography

• (left) Lewis Hine, Boy carrying home work from
  New York sweatshop, 1912. Gsp.
• (right) Gustave Courbet, Stonebreakers, oil on
  canvas, 1849-50, destroyed WWII

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(left) John Sloan American Ashcan School
Painter, 1871-1951, Red Kimono on the Roof, oil
on canvas, 1912, New York City(right top)
Robert Henri American Ashcan School Painter
1865-1929 Romany Girl, oil on canvas, c.1909,
New York City (Crocker Museum, Sacramento)The
Ashcan School
Hine, Lunchtime, 1915
Lewis Hine, Street Child, ca 1910
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Montage poster from Child Labor Bulletin 3

• There is work which profits the children, and
  there is work that brings profit only to
  employers
• Lewis Hine
• The High Cost of Child Labor
• Child Labor Bulletin 3 (1914-15)

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Now, let us take a glance under Brooklyn Bridge
at 3 a.m. on a cold, snowy night. While these
boys we see there wait, huddled, yet alert, for a
customer, we might pause to ask where lies the
power in a picture. Whether it be a painting or
a photograph, the picture is a symbol that brings
one immediately into close touch with reality.
Lewis Hine, Social Photography

• Lewis Hine, Midnight at the Brooklyn Bridge,
  1906. Gsp.

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• HINES AESTHETIC

• Most effective when non-essentials are
  eliminated.
• Straight forward portraiture.
• Subject aware of process and collaborating with
  Hine.
• Not exploitive.
• Subjects always maintain their dignity.
• Sophisticated spatial constructions.
• Selective focus.
• Telling details.
• Strong use of light and tonality.
• Expressive subjects.

• Hine, Self-Portrait with Newsboy, 1908, New York
  City

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• They were bent over 14-16 hours a day, 6 days a
  week
• separating coal from slag for 75 cents a day.
• - Lewis Hine

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• Then the pieces rattled down through long chutes
  at which the breaker boys sat. These boys picked
  out the pieces of slate and stone that cannot
  burn. It's like sitting in a coal bin all day
  long, except that the coal is always moving and
  clattering and cuts their fingers.
• - Lewis Hine

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• Hundreds and hundreds of boys work in the mines
  and in the
• breakers early morning until evening, instead of
  going to school
• and playing outdoors.
• Lewis Hine, Mr. Coal's Story, Child Labor
  Bulletin, August, 1913

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All along I had to be doubly sure that my
photo-data was 100 pure not retouching or
fakery of any kind. This had its influence on my
continued use of straight photography.
- Lewis HineTo be straight
for Hine meant more than purity of photographic
means it meant also a responsibility to the
truth of vision. - Alan Trachtenberg

• Lewis Hine, Boy Running "Trip Rope" in a Mine,
  Welch, WV, 1908.

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• Lewis Hine, Manuel the young shrimp picker, age
  5, and a mountain of child labor oyster shells
  behind him. He worked last year. Understands not
  a word of English. Biloxi, Miss. Gsp.

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• Lewis Hine, Girl worker in Carolina cotton mill,
  1908. Gsp.

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• Lewis Hine, The overseer said apologetically,
  "She just happened in." She was working steadily.
  The mills seem full of youngsters who "just
  happened in" or "are helping sister." Newberry,
  S.C. Gsp.

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• Lewis Hine, Jo Bodeon, a back-roper in the mule
  room at
• Chace Cotton Mill. Burlington, Vt. Gsp.

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• Lewis Hine. Boy, Hull House, Chicago. n.d. Gsp.
• Hull-House founded by education reformer Jane
  Addams

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In the 1920's and early 1930's, Hine turned to
the American working class, seeking in their
faces, their hands and their activity his paean
of praise for the dignity of labor. -
Walter Rosenblum, America Lewis Hine

• Lewis Hine, Candy Worker, New York, 1925. Gsp.

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• Lewis Hine, Power house mechanic working on
  steam pump, 1920. Gsp.

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Hine produced more than a thousand pictures of
the Empire State Building in construction and
used several of these, along with other work
portraits made during the nineteen twenties, for
Men at Work (1932).

• Lewis Hine, Icarus, Empire State Building, 1930

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• This project should give us light on the kinds
  of strength we have to build upon as a nation.
  Much emphasis is being put upon the dangers
  inherent in our alien groups, our unassimilated
  or even partly Americanized citizens - criticism
  based upon insufficient knowledge. A corrective
  for this would be better facilities for seeing,
  and so understanding, what the facts are....
• Lewis Hine, Our Strength Is Our People

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• Lewis Hine, Old-time steel worker on Empire State
  building, 1931. Gsp.

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• Lewis Hine, Man on Girders, Mooring Mast, Empire
  State Building, New York, c. 1931. Gsp.

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• Lewis Hine, Laying beams, Empire State building
  construction, 1931. Gsp.

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• Lewis Hine, Riveters working on mooring mast,
  Empire State building , 1930. Gsp.

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• Lewis Hine, Riveting at the top of mooring-mast
  on Empire State Building, 1930. Gsp.

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Paul Strand
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• Paul Strand (American,1890-1976), Blind, 1916,
  platinotype

This seminal image of a street beggar was
published in 1917 as a gravure in Stieglitz's
magazine "Camera Work" and immediately became an
icon of the new American photography, which
integrated the objectivity of social
documentation with the boldly simplified forms of
Modernism.
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• Porch Shadows is among the first photographic
  abstractions to be made intentionally. Stieglitz
  published it in Camera Work, praising it as "the
  direct expression of today because it does not
  depend upon recognizable imagery for its effect,
  but on the relations of forms within the frame.

• Paul Strand (American,1890-1976)
• Porch Shadows, 1916, satista print

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(left) Paul Strand (American 1890-1976) Porch
Shadows, 1916, satista print(right) Theo van
Doesburg (Dutch 1883-1931) Counter-composition
XIII, oil on canvas, 1926, De Stijl
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(left) Paul Strand, Porch Shadows, 1916, satista
print(right) Alfred Stieglitz, Equivalent, 1929.
GSPAbstract photography found form
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• Paul Strand, Wall Street, 1916, platinotype

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• Strand wrote that he knew nothing about
  cartels, etc." but "was trying to photograph the
  rushing to work... physical movement expressed by
  the abstract spotting of people and shapes...
  and no doubt the black shapes of the windows
  have helped this quality of a great maw into
  which people rush."
• Naomi Rosenblum, Paul Strand, The Early Years.

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• Paul Strand, People, Streets of New York, 83rd
  and West End Avenue,1916, platinotype

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• (left) Lewis Hine, Riveters working on mooring
  mast, Empire State building , 1930. Gsp
• (right) Paul Strand, People, Streets of New York,
  83rd and West End Avenue, 1916, platinotype

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Charles Sheeler (American painter photographer,
1883-1965), American Landscape (Ford River Rouge
Plant),1930, oil on canvas, 24 x 31 (Note
solitary figure on the track to the left of the
yellow railcar.) PRECISIONISM (right) Strand,
Wall Street, 1916 American modern alienation.
Both picture the mechanisms of American power
dwarfing isolated individual workers.
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(left) Charles Sheeler, Church Street El, 1920,
Oil on canvas,16 x 19 (right) Still from
6-minute film, Manhatta, by Paul Strand and
Charles Sheeler, 1920
Walt Whitman, Manhatta, 1855 "High growths of
iron slender, strong, splendidly uprising
toward clear skies."
PRECISIONISM MANHATTA
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Paul Strand, Wall Street, 1917 with still (right)
from Manhatta by Sheeler and Strand,1920
http//video.google.com/videoplay?docid-7478746
528053618656qmanhattahlen
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• (left) Paul Strand, Lathe, Akeley Shop, New York,
  1922, gelatin silver print
• (right) Lewis Hine, Power house mechanic working
  on steam pump, 1920, gsp

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• Paul Strand, Geometric Backyards, New York, 1917,
  platinotype

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• Paul Strand, White Fence, 1916, platinotype

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• The photographers problem, therefore, is to see
  clearly the limitations and at the same time the
  potential qualities of his medium, for it is
  precisely here that honesty, no less than
  intensity of vision, is the prerequisite of a
  living expression. This means a real respect for
  the thing in front of him, expressed in terms of
  chiaroscuro through a range of almost infinite
  tonal values, which lie beyond the skill of the
  human hand.
• - Strand

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• Paul Strand, Ranchos de Taos Church, New Mexico,
  1931. Platinotype

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(left) Paul Strand, Ranchos de Taos Church, New
Mexico, 1931, Platinotype(right) Georgia
OKeefe, Ranchos Church, No. II, NM, 1929, oil on
canvas
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• Paul Strand, Toadstool and Grasses, Georgetown,
  Maine, 1928, gsp.