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A woman with light skin wearing a long, corseted dress with a full skirt and a wide-brimmed, feathered hat sits writing or drawing at a round table next to an open window in this vertical, black and white photograph. Light coming in through the window to our left creates slanting stripes of light and shadow across the table and the wall opposite us, suggesting it filters through blinds or slats. The woman sits in a straight-backed, wooden chair with a caned back. We see the curve of her cheek and the tip of her nose as she bends slightly over the paper and pen. Her hair is pulled back in a bun at the back of her head under the hat, and her dark dress has a wide lace collar. The table is covered with a patterned cloth and holds a tall candlestick with a twisted candle, an ink bottle, a small, lidded jar, and a picture of a woman in a frame decorated with daisies. On the wall opposite us, six photographs or drawings hang on the wall. Two of them show landscapes, three show a woman or women, and one shows a man. Three heart-shaped decorations tied with bows hang among the other papers and a bird cage hangs to our right. The wallpaper has a dense, brocade-like floral pattern. The windowpanes swing into the room to our left, and a sliver of an open doorway lines the right edge. The top and bottom zones of the photograph are swallowed in deep shadow.

Alfred Stieglitz

Sun Rays—Paula, Berlin, 1889, printed 1916

Not on View

Medium

platinum print

Dimensions

image: 23.2 x 18.5 cm (9 1/8 x 7 5/16 in.)

sheet: 25.4 x 20.3 cm (10 x 8 in.)

Credit Line

Alfred Stieglitz Collection

Accession Number

1949.3.57

Stieglitz Estate Number

55E

Key Set Number

Artists / Makers

Alfred Stieglitz (artist) American, 1864 - 1946

Image Use

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Key Set Entry

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Related Key Set Photographs

Alfred Stieglitz

Sun Rays—Paula, Berlin

1889, printed 1929/1937

gelatin silver print

Key Set Number 61

same negative

Remarks

The photographs hanging on the wall are, from left to right, top row: The Approaching Storm (illustrated in Die Photographische Rundschau 3:7 [1888], frontispiece), Paula (location unknown, illustrated in Sotheby’s, New York, auction catalogue, 9 November 1976, lot 174), The Approaching Storm (see above); middle row: Paula (location unknown); portrait of Stieglitz (by an unknown photographer); and bottom row: Paula (location unknown). In the mirror is another print of Paula (see above).

Stieglitz may have submitted this image to The Amateur Photographer’s “Travelling Studentship Competition” as A Study in Light and Shade. The journal notes: “all the negatives are un-retouched, and no cloud negatives are used. They have been taken with a Steinheil Aplanat. The plates used include Obernetter, Eosine, Schlenssn, Perulz (eosine), and Lumière. The developers have been pyro and soda and iron, and the whole of the prints have been produced in platinotype” (The Amateur Photographer 12 [18 July 1890], 41).

The woman shown here is probably Stieglitz’s lover, Paula Bauschmied, who lived in Munich and with whom Stieglitz had an illegitimate daughter (Georgia O’Keeffe to the law firm of Lowenstein, Pitcher, Spence, Hotchkiss, Amann & Parr, 19 January 1956, private collection).

Stieglitz Collections

A corresponding print was given to the following institution(s) by Alfred Stieglitz during his lifetime, or was received or acquired from the estate:

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, YCAL MSS 85, box 132 [lantern slide] (inscribed: Sun Rays [Berlin, 1889])

Other Collections

A print corresponding with this photograph can also be found in the following collection(s):

Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth

Location unknown (inscribed: Paula— / 1889 Berlin)

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:

possibly 1891, New York, Fourth Annual Joint Exhibition (no. 306, as Study in Light and Shade)
possibly 1891, New York, Society of Amateur Photographers (no. 223, as Study in Light and Shade)
1921, New York (no. 3, as Sunlight and Shadow, 1889)
1934, New York (no. 5, as Sun Rays, Berlin, 1889)
1937, New York (no. 16, as Sun Rays, 1889)

Lifetime Publications

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

Waldo Frank et al., America & Alfred Stieglitz (New York, 1934): pl. 31b (ill., Light and Shadows, 1887)

E. M. Benson, “Alfred Stieglitz: The Man and the Book,” American Magazine of Art 28 (January 1935): 39 (ill., Light and Shadow, Berlin, 1887)

Robert W. Marks, “Man with a Cause,” Coronet 4 (September 1938): 168 (ill., Light and Shadow, 1889)

Robert W. Marks, “Stieglitz—Patriarch of Photography,” Popular Photography 6 (April 1940): 21 (ill., Paula—Sun Rays)

“High Card,” Time 41 (11 January 1943): 44 (ill., Paula)

“Speaking of Pictures . . . These are by one of Photography’s Pioneers,” Life 14:14 (5 April 1943): 6 (ill., Paula, 1889)

Inscription

by Alfred Stieglitz, on mount, lower left, in graphite: Sun Rays—Paula—(Paulstrasse, Berlin) 1889.— / Print 1916. Alfred Stieglitz — / A1 Print

Provenance

Georgia O'Keeffe; gift to NGA, 1949.

Associated Names

O'Keeffe, Georgia

Exhibition History

1983: Photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, February 3–May 8, 1983; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, June 17–August 14, 1983; The Art Institute of Chicago, October 18, 1983–January 3, 1984

1992: Stieglitz in the Darkroom, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, October 4, 1992–February 14, 1993

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

2015: In Light of the Past: Celebrating Twenty-Five Years of Collecting Photographs at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, May 3–July 26, 2015

Bibliography

1947: Cramer, Konrad. "Stupendous Stieglitz." PSA Journal 13 (November 1947): 723.

1950: Norman, Dorothy. "Alfred Stieglitz on Photography.” Magazine of Art 43 (December 1950): 300.

1973: Norman, Dorothy. Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer. New York, 1973: 1.

1983: Greenough, Sarah, and Juan Hamilton. Alfred Stieglitz: Photographs and Writings. Washington, 1983: no. 3, pl. 8.

1990: Paulson, Ronald. Figure and Abstraction in Contemporary Painting. New Brunswick and London, 1990: repro. 141.

2002: Greenough, Sarah. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs. Washington, 2002: vol. 1, cat. 60.