Winter, Fifth Avenue, 1893, printed 1894

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Remarks

This photograph was made at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 35th Street, near the headquarters of the Society of Amateur Photographers of New York, where Stieglitz was a member.

In “The Hand Camera—Its Present Importance,” The American Annual of Photography and Photographic Times Almanac for 1897 (New York, 1896), 19–27, Stieglitz wrote: “In order to obtain pictures by means of the hand camera it is well to choose your subject, regardless of figures, and carefully study the lines and lighting. After having determined upon these watch the passing figures and await the moment in which everything is in balance; that is, satisfies your eye. This often means hours of patient waiting. My picture, ‘Fifth Avenue, Winter,’ is the result of a three hours’ stand during a fierce snow-storm on February 22d, 1893, awaiting the proper moment. My patience was duly rewarded. Of course, the result contained an element of chance, as I might have stood there for hours without succeeding in getting the desired picture. I remember how upon having developed the negative of the picture I showed it to some of my colleagues. They smiled and advised me to throw away such rot. ‘Why, it isn’t even sharp, and he wants to use it for an enlargement!’ Such were the remarks made about what I knew was a piece of work quite out of the ordinary, in that it was the first attempt at picture making with the hand camera in such adverse and trying circumstances from a photographic point of view. Some time later the laugh was on the other side, for when the finished picture was shown to these same gentlemen it proved to them conclusively that there was other photographic work open to them during the ‘bad season’ than that so fully set forth in the photographic journals under the heading, ‘Work for the Winter Months.’ This incident also goes to prove that the making of the negative alone is not the making of the picture. My hand camera negatives are all made with the express purpose of enlargement, and it is but rarely that I use more than part of the original shot.”

When Stieglitz exhibited this photograph later in his life, he often dated it 1892, but he consistently remembered that it was made on Washington’s birthday, 22 February (see above and W. M. M., “Reviews and Exchanges,” Camera Notes 1 [January 1898], 84). On 22 February 1892 the forecast for the day was “fair, warmer weather,” while on the same day in 1893 a blizzard blanketed the entire East Coast with as much as fifteen inches of snow (The New York Times [22 February 1892], 4; [22 February 1893], 4; and [23 February 1893], 1).

This photograph and Key Set numbers 83, 84, 85, 86, and 87 were made from the same negative.

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:

George Eastman Museum, Rochester, 74:0052:0039 A and B (inscribed: Winter—Fifth Ave 1893); 83:0660:0019 [lantern slide] (inscribed: 78. Winter, Fifth Avenue, I. / Alfred Stieglitz, New York)

Other Collections

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

Location unknown [lantern slide]

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:

probably 1894, London, R.P.S. (no. 74, as Winter)
1894, Brooklyn (no. 519, as Fifth Avenue in Winter, carbon enlargement, silver medal)
1896, Vienna (silver medal)
1896, Paris (no. 571, as L’Hiver, Cinquième avenue [Winter, Fifth Avenue], enlarged carbon)
1897, London, R.P.S. (no. 440, as Winter—Fifth Avenue I or Winter—Fifth Avenue II, lantern slide)
1898, New York, American Institute (no. 131, as Winter—Fifth Avenue)
1898, Philadelphia (no. 199, as Winter, Fifth Avenue)
1898, Munich (no. 274, as Winter, Fifth Avenue)
1899, Berlin (no. 565, as Winter—Fifth Avenue)
1899, New York (no. 38, as Winter, Fifth Avenue, 1893–1899, carbon enlargement)
1899, New York, Camera Club (no. 142, as Winter on Fifth Avenue)
1899, Hamburg (no. 736, as Winter, Fifth Avenue, 1893)
1900, Chicago (no. 110, as Winter in Fifth Avenue)
1901, Glasgow (no. 487, as Winter, Fifth Avenue)
1902, New York (no. 127, as Winter—Fifth Avenue, 1892)
1904, Pittsburgh (no. 226, as Winter, Fifth Avenue)
1904, Vienna (no. 1, as Winter—Fifth Avenue)
1904, Dresden (no. 172, as Winter—Fifth Avenue)
1905, Vienna, Camera Klub (no. 44, as Winter—Fifth Avenue, 1892)
1909, New York (no. 180, as Winter—Fifth Avenue, 1892)
1909, Dresden (no. 164, as Winter, Fifth Avenue)
1910, Buffalo (no. 419, as Winter, Fifth Avenue, 1892, carbon)
1913, New York (no. 1, as Winter on Fifth Avenue, 1892)
1921, New York (no. 6, as Winter, Fifth Avenue, 1892)
1932, New York (no. 30, as Winter on Fifth Ave., 1892)
1944, Philadelphia (no. 7, as Winter, Fifth Ave., 1892)

Lifetime Publications

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

“Alfred Stieglitz and His Latest Work,” The Photographic Times 28 (April 1896): opp. 161 (ill., Winter)

Alfred Stieglitz, “The Hand Camera—Its Present Importance,” The American Annual of Photography and Photographic Times Almanac for 1897 (New York, 1896): 19 (ill., Winter, Fifth Avenue)

Wiener Photographische Blätter 4:1 (January 1897): frontispiece (ill., untitled)

W. I. Lincoln Adams, Sunlight and Shadow (New York, 1897): 69 (ill., Winter, Fifth Avenue)

Picturesque Bits of New York and Other Studies (New York, 1897): unnumbered (ill, Winter on Fifth Avenue, photogravure)

F. Schiffner, “Zur Geschichte der Künstlerischen Photographie,” Photographisches Centralblatt 4 (December 1898): between 438 and 439 (ill., Winter)

Alfred Stieglitz, “Pictorial Photography,” Scribner’s Magazine 26:5 (November 1899): 536 (ill., Winter, Fifth Avenue, New York)

The Amateur Photographer 32 (20 July 1900): 49 (ill., Winter in Fifth Avenue.—1893)

Photographische Rundschau 14:12 (1900): between 240 and 241 (ill., Winter 5th Avenue N.Y., photogravure)

Sadakichi Hartmann, “The Photo-Secession. A New Pictorial Movement,” The Craftsman 6:1 (April 1904): 30 (ill., Winter in Fifth Avenue)

Sadakichi Hartmann, “Aesthetic Activity in Photography,” Brush and Pencil 14:1 (April 1904): 48 (ill., Winter in Fifth Avenue)

Sadakichi Hartmann, “Amerikanische Kunstphotographen: Eine zeitgenössische Studie,” Dekorative Kunst 8 (May 1905): 331 (ill., Winter in Fifth Avenue)

Camera Work 12 (October 1905): pl. 2 (ill., Winter—Fifth Avenue, 1892)

Charles H. Caffin, “Photographic Pictures,” Burr-MacIntosh Monthly 19 (June 1909): unpaginated (ill., Winter—Fifth Avenue)

J. Nilsen Laurvik, “International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography in the National Arts Club,” The International Studio 38 (September 1909): lxv (ill., Winter on Fifth Avenue)

J. Nilsen Laurvik, “Alfred Stieglitz, Pictorial Photographer,” The International Studio 44:174 (August 1911): xxii (ill., Winter on Fifth Avenue)

Georgia Engelhard, “Alfred Stieglitz: Master Photographer,” American Photography 39 (April 1945): 11 (ill., Winter on Fifth Avenue)

Inscription

by Alfred Stieglitz, on mount, upper left verso, in graphite: 1 [in square]; lower left verso, in graphite: negative / 1892 (Print / 1894)

by Georgia O'Keeffe, on mount, bottom left verso, in graphite: 96 A

Provenance

Georgia O'Keeffe; gift to NGA, 1949.

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

Bibliography

1983

Greenough, Sarah, and Juan Hamilton. Alfred Stieglitz: Photographs and Writings. Washington, 1983: no. 20, pl. 12.

2002

Greenough, Sarah. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs. Washington, 2002: vol. 1, cat. 82.

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