The Old Mill, 1894

Key Set Entry

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Remarks

This photograph and Key Set numbers 172–205 were made in Gutach, southwest of Stuttgart.

In 1895, noting that “the stories of the Black Forest are told in fairy tales,” Stieglitz wrote, “Gutach lies in the very heart of the Schwarzwald or Black Forest, the lovely woods which make the Duchy of Baden famous, and the inhabitants have taken something of the sunshine and the odor of the pines into their souls, making them cheerful simple natures, ever willing to assist, entering into the spirit of the artist, and the smallest gratuity prompts the willing spirits to long hours of posing. The many artists who frequent this famous town and the fact that it lies far off the beaten track of globe trotters and summer excursionists explains the simplicity and readiness to oblige of these simple people. The town itself offers every possible variety of subject. Mountains, even the snow-clad ones of the Alps in the distance, beautiful vistas in the pine woods, farming scenes,—for these people are distinctly agricultural, everything that the artist could desire, and no tall factory buildings with their modern rectangular lines of bricks and windows to disturb, no railroads with smoky locomotives to dim the pure atmosphere, and all these ever changing, presenting a new and varying view at every turn, changing with each season of the year, with every change from lowering storm to noble inspiring sunshine” (with Louis H. Schubart, “Two Artists’ Haunts,” The Photographic Times 26 [January 1895], 9–12).

Other Collections

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

Richard and Ellen Sandor Family Collection

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:

1895, Paris (no. 579, as Le Vieux Moulin, platinum)
1898, New York, Camera Club (no. 17, as The Old Mill)
1898, Philadelphia (no. 198, as The Old Mill)
1899, New York (nos. 1 and 70, as The Old Mill, 1894, platinum direct and enlarged photogravure)
1900, Chicago (no. 113, as The Old Mill)
1910, Buffalo (no. 421, as The Old Mill, 1894, photogravure)

Lifetime Publications

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

The Photographic Times 26 (June 1895): opp. 321 (ill., The Old Mill, photogravure)

Camera Notes 1:1 (July 1897): 5 (ill., untitled)

Picturesque Bits of New York and Other Studies (New York, 1897): unnumbered (ill., The Old Mill)

Walter E. Woodbury, The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Photography (New York, 1898): frontispiece (ill., The Old Mill)

Charles DeKay, “The Photographer as Artist,” The New York Times Illustrated Magazine (4 June 1899): 6 (ill., The Old Mill)

Theodore Dreiser, “A Master of Photography,” Success Magazine 2 (10 June 1899): 471 (ill., The Old Mill)

Sadakichi Hartmann, Landscape and Figure Composition (New York, 1910): 55, fig. 47 (ill., The Old Mill)

Inscription

by later hand, on mount, lower left verso, in graphite: 60D

Provenance

Georgia O'Keeffe; gift to NGA, 1949.

Bibliography

2002

Greenough, Sarah. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs. Washington, 2002: vol. 1, cat. 171.

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