Professor Werner
1895, printed 1895/1896
Artist, American, 1864 - 1946
Artwork overview
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Medium
platinum print
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Credit Line
-
Dimensions
sheet (trimmed to image): 18.6 × 13.1 cm (7 5/16 × 5 3/16 in.)
page size: 34.8 × 27.3 cm (13 11/16 × 10 3/4 in.) -
Accession
1949.3.239
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Stieglitz Estate Number
78B
Part of Stieglitz Key Set Online Edition
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Key Set Number
247
Alfred Stieglitz
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Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Georgia O'Keeffe; gift to NGA, 1949.
Associated Names
Bibliography
2002
Greenough, Sarah. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs. Washington, 2002: vol. 1, cat. 247.
Inscriptions
by Alfred Stieglitz, on interleaving tissue, upper right, in graphite: "Prof. Werner." [underlined] / 1895.
Wikidata ID
Q64037717
Scholarly Remarks and Key Set Data
Remarks
Adolph Werner, Hedwig Stieglitz’s cousin, was born in Frankfurt and immigrated to America in 1850; he became a professor of German Language and Literature at the City College of New York. Werner encouraged Stieglitz to attend City College in 1879 and later to study in Germany.
Noting that many amateurs blamed their unsuccessful portraits on a lack of a “suitable studio,” Stieglitz wrote an article in 1898 using this photograph and Key Set number 248 to demonstrate how “an underexposed cluster of trees, thickly covered with green leaves” could serve as a natural backdrop (“A Natural Background for Out-of-Door Portraiture,” The American Annual of Photography and Photographic Times Almanac for 1898 [New York, 1897], 210–211).
Other Collections
A print corresponding with this photograph can also be found in the following collection(s):
Collection of Richard and Ronay Menschel [gelatin silver]
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 83.85.1
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 2016.101.422
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:
1898, New York, American Institute (no. 53, as Professor W., bronze medal)
1899, New York (no. 61, as Portrait of Prof. W., 1896, platinum direct)
Lifetime Publications
A reproduction of this work appeared in the following publication(s) during Alfred Stieglitz’s lifetime:
Alfred Stieglitz, “A Natural Background for Out-of-Door Portraiture,” The American Annual of Photography and Photographic Times Almanac for 1898 (New York, 1897): opp. 211 (ill., Open-Air Portrait)
M. [F. Matthies-Masuren], “Alfred Stieglitz—New York,” Photographisches Centralblatt 4 (December 1898): 429 (ill., untitled)