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Introduction | 291 Gallery | Anderson Galleries and Intimate Gallery | An American Place
Celebrated for his photographs, Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) was one of the
most influential figures in early twentieth-century art. In his New York City
galleries--the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, known as 291 from its
address on Fifth Avenue; the Intimate Gallery; and An American Place--he gathered
around him some of the most gifted artists, photographers, and critics of his
time. The modern European and American art he presented there challenged his
audience to consider new ideas about painting, sculpture, and photography. Modern
Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries brings together
for the first time in more than fifty years a representative collection of the
exact works that Stieglitz exhibited in an effort to reveal more clearly the
nature of his contribution to American art.
Born
in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1864, to German immigrants, Stieglitz traveled to
Berlin in 1881 to study engineering. While there he became fascinated with photography
and on his return to the United States in 1890 became a leader among those who
sought to prove that photography was capable of artistic expression. In 1902
he founded the Photo-Secession, a group dedicated to the cause of artistic photography,
and in 1903 he began to publish Camera Work, an elegantly designed journal
that included cogent discussion of photography and the other arts. In 1905,
at the urging of his young protégé, the photographer and painter
Edward Steichen, he opened
the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession at 291 Fifth Avenue so that the
group would have a place to exhibit. Because Stieglitz and Steichen believed
that photography needed to be seen in relation to other arts, 291 from its inception
was conceived as an exhibition space not only for photography but also for painting,
sculpture, and drawings.