The Last Load, 1890, printed 1895/1896

Key Set Entry

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Remarks

In August 1890 Stieglitz travelled to Cortina d’Ampezzo, located at the base of the Dolomite mountains in Italy, and Sterzing in the Tyrol, near Innsbruck, Austria. He later wrote: “After a severe and long term of experimental laboratory work, I managed to get a few days of vacation in order to run down to that picturesque and at the same time grandly situated village, Cortina, the headquarters of mountain tourists in the Ampezzo Valley.” Although plagued by poor weather, he made a day trip to Lago di Misurina and on returning to Cortina, “met a crowd of peasants working in the fields, the result, which gives one an idea of the beauty of the surrounding country” (“Cortina and Sterzing,” in Sun Pictures from Many Lands [London, 1892], 60–61).

Lifetime Exhibitions

A print from the same negative—perhaps a photograph from the Gallery’s collection—appeared in the following exhibition(s) during Alfred Stieglitz’s lifetime:

1891, New York, Fourth Annual Joint Exhibition (no. 313, as Loading Hay, Ampezzo Valley)
1891, New York, Society of Amateur Photographers (no. 229, as Loading Hay, Ampezzo Valley)

Lifetime Publications

A reproduction of this work appeared in the following publication(s) during Alfred Stieglitz’s lifetime:

“Art in Photographs,” The Sun (24 May 1891): 16 (ill., The Last Load)

John Brisben Walker, “Alfalfa Farming at the Foot of the Rocky Mountains,” The Cosmopolitan 12:1 (November 1891): 92 (ill., The Last Load)

William George Oppenheim, “Distinguished Photographers of To-Day,” The Photographic Times 23 (1 December 1893): 691 (ill., The Last Load, photogravure)

The American Amateur Photographer 6:1 (January 1894): opp. 3 (ill., The Last Load)

Inscription

by Alfred Stieglitz, on interleaving tissue, lower right, in graphite: The Last Load / 1890

Provenance

Georgia O'Keeffe; gift to NGA, 1949.

Exhibition History

2002

Alfred Stieglitz: Known and Unknown, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, June 2–September 2, 2002; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, October 6, 2002–January 5, 2003

Bibliography

2002

Greenough, Sarah. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs. Washington, 2002: vol. 1, cat. 70.

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