Alfred Stieglitz And Photography Essay Research Paper

Alfred Stieglitz And Photography Essay, Research Paper

Alfred Stieglitz was an influential photographer who spent his

life fighting for the recognition of photography as a valid art form.

He was a pioneering photographer, editor and gallery owner who played

pivotal role in defining and shaping modernism in the United States.

(Lowe 23). He took pictures in a time when photography was considered

as only a scientific curiosity and not an art. As the controversy over

the art value of photography became widespread, Stieglitz began to

fight for the recognition of his chosen medium. This battle would last

his whole life.

Edward Stieglitz, father of Alfred, was born in Germany in 1833.

He grew up on a farm, loved nature, and was an artist at heart. Legend

has it that, independent and strong willed, Edward Stieglitz ran away

from home at the age of sixteen because his mother insisted on upon

starching his shirt after he had begged her not to (Lowe 23). Edward

would later meet Hedwig Warner and they would have their first son,

Alfred. Alfred was the first of six born to his dad Edward and mom

Hedwig. As a child Alfred was remembered as a boy with thick black

hair, large dark eyes, pale fine skin, a delicately modeled mouth with

a strong chin (Peterson 34). In 1871 the Stieglitz family lived at 14

East 60th street in Manhattan. No buildings stood between Central Park

and the Stieglitz family home. As Stieglitz got older he started to

show interest in photography, posting every photo he could find on his

bedroom wall. It wasn’t until he got older that his photography

curiosity begin to take charge of his life.

Stieglitz formally started photography at the age of nineteen,

during his first years at the Berlin Polytechnic School. At this time

photography was in its infancy as an art form. Alfred learned the fine

arts of photography by watching a local photographer in Berlin working

in the store’s dark room. After making a few pictures of his room and

himself, he enrolled in a photochemistry course. This is where his

photography career would begin. His earliest public recognition came

from England and Germany. It began in 1887 when Stieglitz won the

first of his many first prizes in a competition. The judge who gave

him the award was Dr. P.H. Emerson, then the most widely known English

advocate of photography as an art (Doty 23). Dr. Emerson later wrote

to Stieglitz about his work sent in to the competition: “It is

perhaps late for me to express my admiration of the work you sent into

the holiday competition. It was the spontaneous work in the exhibition

and I was delighted with much of it”, (Bry 11). The first photographer

organization Alfred joined while still in Berlin, was the German

Society of the Friends of Photography. After returning to the United

States 1890, Stieglitz joined the Society of Amateur Photographers of

New York. These experiences would later help him in years to

come.

By 1902 Stieglitz had become the authority in his chosen field.

Stieglitz found that his achievements were not enough to win

recognition for photography. Finally in 1902 he founded an entirely

new photography group of his own, the Photo Secession. The focus of

the Photo Secession was the advancement of pictorial photography.

Stieglitz being the leader gathered a talented group of American

photographers headed toward the same common goal, to demonstrate

photography as an art form( Lowe 54). This was the first of many Photo

Secession shows through which Stieglitz set out and demonstrated

photography as an art. Their first Photo Secession exhibition was held

at the National Arts Club in New York. Photo Secession shows were

supported by galleries all over the world as well as Stieglitz’s own

gallery. All these events were reported in Stieglitz’s weekly magazine

Camera Work, which Stieglitz founded, edited, and published in fifty

volumes from its beginning in 1903 until its end in 1917. Although the

Photo Secession group never dissolved, it gradually diminished as an

organized group. Stieglitz continued to show new photographic work

when he believed it was important. It was all part of his fight for

photography, but the battleground and the participants had changed.

In 1917 when Stieglitz was 54 years old Georgia O’Keeffe arrived

in New York (see pict.1). This event would change Stieglitz’s life

forever. Stieglitz at first didn’t know Georgia personally but showed

her pictures at his gallery “291″. They would later meet during one of

Georgia’s shows. Soon after they meet, Alfred took Georgia up to the

Stieglitz home at Lake George in the Adirondack Mountains. Soon

Stieglitz was one of Georgia’s most eager supporters, arranging shows

even selling some of her paintings. Buying an O’Keffe was not only

expensive, but a c

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