Alfred Stieglitz Overview

Alfred Stieglitz spent his life pushing for the acknowledgement of photography as a valid art form. In 1923, when the Museum of Fine Arts hosted some of Stieglitz's photographs, it marked the first time that the American public saw photography in... [more]

Alfred Stieglitz spent his life pushing for the acknowledgement of photography as a valid art form. In 1923, when the Museum of Fine Arts hosted some of Stieglitz's photographs, it marked the first time that the American public saw photography in a major American museum. Stieglitz was born in New Jersey to wealthy German-Jewish parents and was educated in New York. At 19, while continuing his schooling in Berlin, he began experimenting with photography. He was seduced by the medium and immediately began breaking the photographic boundaries set by the time. Stieglitz was well received in Germany, but faced harsh criticism upon returning to the U.S. because of the American sentiment that photography was only a science or hobby. Nonetheless, Stieglitz would eventually boast more than 150 international exhibitions and become the leading authority in his field. He invented "pure photography" and the gelatin process, and made a habit of photographing the "unfashionable." In the mid-1890s, he created the first photographs of snow, and in 1896 became the first photographer to successfully produce "night" photos. Stieglitz founded Camera Notes; formed the photographers' organization called the Photo Secession, which included Gertrude Kasebier, Clarence White, and Franck Eugene; and created his own gallery, named 291, which introduced the European avant-garde to Americans. In 1917, he began a series of photographs of his future wife, Georgia O'Keefe. The photographs exhibited an emotional integrity never before seen in the medium. [show less]