Sunlight Effect

1890, printed 1895/1896

Alfred Stieglitz

Artist, American, 1864 - 1946

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    platinum print

  • Credit Line

    Alfred Stieglitz Collection

  • Dimensions

    sheet (trimmed to image): 18.3 × 14.8 cm (7 3/16 × 5 13/16 in.)
    page size: 34.8 × 27 cm (13 11/16 × 10 5/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1949.3.65

  • Stieglitz Estate Number

    74D

    Part of Stieglitz Key Set Online Edition

    Learn more
  • Key Set Number

    65

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. 65.

Inscriptions

by Alfred Stieglitz, on interleaving tissue, lower right, in graphite: Sunlight Effect.

Wikidata ID

Q64037790

Scholarly Remarks and Key Set Data

Remarks

This photograph was incorrectly titled Study in Light and Shade when it was reproduced in a review of the 1891 “Fourth Annual Exhibition of Photographs” by the Photographic Society of Philadelphia, The Boston Camera Club and Society of Amateur Photographers of New York (see “Art in Photographs,” The Sun [24 May 1891], 16). Another review of the exhibition notes that “Sunlight Effect” was a picture of “a girl sitting on a hillside” (see The American Amateur Photographer 3 [July 1891], 260).

The negative for this photograph and Key Set number 66 was made with a Steinheil Rapid Rectalinear 19-inch lens, using a Vogel-Obernetter plate. It was developed with oxalate, pyrosoda, hydroquinone, and eikonogen (see exh. cats., Society of Amateur Photographers, New York, 1891, and the Fourth Annual Joint Exhibition, New York, 1891).

Other Collections

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

Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1995-2-25 [lantern slide] (inscribed: 24. A Study)

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. 317, as Sunlight Effect)
1891, New York, Society of Amateur Photographers (no. 233, as Sunlight Effect)

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., Study in Light and Shade, line drawing)

“The Progress of Amateur Photography—Some Remarkable Specimens of Figure Work,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly 75 (9 January 1892): 402 (ill., A Study)


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