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onlyoldphotography: Alfred Stieglitz: The Steerage, 1907 The Steerage is considered Stieglitz’s signature work, and was proclaimed by the artist and illustrated in histories of the medium as his first “modernist” photograph. It marks Stieglitz’s transition away from painterly prints of Symbolist subjects to a more straightforward depiction of quotidian life.The Steerage began its life as a masterpiece four years after its creation, with Stieglitz’s publication of it in a 1911 issue of Camera Work devoted exclusively to his photographs in the “new” style, together with a Cubist drawing by Picasso. Stieglitz loved to recount how the great painter had praised the collagelike dispersal of forms and shifting depths of The Steerage. Canonized retroactively, the photograph allowed Stieglitz to put his chosen medium on par with the experimental European painting and sculpture he imported and exhibited so presciently at his gallery. In 1915, he lavishly reprinted the image in large-scale photogravure on both vellum and japanese paper for inclusion in his last magazine, 291.

onlyoldphotography:

Alfred Stieglitz: The Steerage, 1907

The Steerage is considered Stieglitz’s signature work, and was proclaimed by the artist and illustrated in histories of the medium as his first “modernist” photograph. It marks Stieglitz’s transition away from painterly prints of Symbolist subjects to a more straightforward depiction of quotidian life.

The Steerage began its life as a masterpiece four years after its creation, with Stieglitz’s publication of it in a 1911 issue of Camera Work devoted exclusively to his photographs in the “new” style, together with a Cubist drawing by Picasso. Stieglitz loved to recount how the great painter had praised the collagelike dispersal of forms and shifting depths of The Steerage. Canonized retroactively, the photograph allowed Stieglitz to put his chosen medium on par with the experimental European painting and sculpture he imported and exhibited so presciently at his gallery. In 1915, he lavishly reprinted the image in large-scale photogravure on both vellum and japanese paper for inclusion in his last magazine, 291.


Posted Mon Sep 10 at 8:35am with 408 notes
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    1907
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    I have always loved this photo because I know this is how my great grandparents immigrated to the United States.
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    Art History of Photography is coming back to haunt me.
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