Provenance

Georgia O'Keeffe; gift to NGA, 1949.

Associated Names

Bibliography

2002

Inscriptions

by Georgia O'Keeffe, on mount, upper left verso, in graphite: 234 B

Wikidata ID

Q64034903

Scholarly Remarks and Key Set Data

In the summer of 1916, Alfred Stieglitz took a series of 11 exuberant snapshots of Ellen Koeniger in a wet, clinging bathing suit. The niece of Frank Eugene, a photographer and friend of Stieglitz, Koeniger was visiting the Stieglitz family estate at Lake George in upstate New York.

The athletic Koeniger is pictured almost cinematically in the sparkling sunlight: on the dock, on the ladder into the lake, and in the water, we see her twisting, turning, leaning, and reaching, her arms outstretched or akimbo. Stieglitz shows her movements from the front and behind, from above and below, in profile and head-on, in close-up and from a distance. Sharply focused, the photographs capture the beads of water on Koeniger’s skin and the wrinkles of the fabric hugging her body. With her wide smile, she appears to revel in her movement and freedom.

For Stieglitz, these joyous photographs marked a breakthrough. Made with a handheld camera rather than his usual large-format, tripod-based camera, they demonstrated his ability to capture the spirit of a moment with minimal means. The photographs also opened the door to using Lake George’s casual life as material for Stieglitz’s serious artistic ambitions.

This photograph is part of the Alfred Stieglitz Key Set, the largest, most complete, and most important collection of photographs by Stieglitz in existence. Georgia O’Keeffe gave the Key Set of 1,642 photographs to the National Gallery of Art in 1949 and 1980.