The Steerage
1907, printed 1911
Artist, American, 1864 - 1946

Artwork overview
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Medium
photogravure
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Credit Line
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Dimensions
image: 19.3 × 15.1 cm (7 5/8 × 5 15/16 in.)
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Accession
1949.3.1278.37
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Copyright
Image courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
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Key Set Number
310
Associated Artworks
See all 16 artworksCamera Work: Vol.9: Numbers 33, 34/35, 36
Alfred Stieglitz
1911

City of Ambition
Alfred Stieglitz
1910

The Swimming Lesson
Alfred Stieglitz
1906

Alfred Stieglitz
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Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Georgia O'Keeffe; gift to NGA, 1949.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1992
Stieglitz in the Darkroom, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, October 4, 1992–February 14, 1993
Bibliography
2002
Greenough, Sarah. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs. Washington, 2002: vol. 1, cat. 310.
Wikidata ID
Q64037820
Scholarly Remarks and Key Set Data
Remarks
On 14 May 1907 Stieglitz and his family sailed to Europe aboard the fashionable Kaiser Wilhelm II. This photograph was most likely taken several days later while the ship was moored in Plymouth, England (see Beaumont Newhall, “Alfred Stieglitz: Homeward Bound,” Art News 87:3 [March 1988], 141–142).
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:
1913, New York (no. 21, as The Steerage, 1907)
1915, New York (as The Steerage (from 291)
1916, New York (no. 100, as The Steerage)
1917, New York (no. 217, as The Steerage)
1918, New York (no. 4, as The Steerage, 1907)
1921, New York (no. 19, as The Steerage, 1907)
1924, New York (no. 61, as The Steerage, 1907)
1931, New York (as Steerage)
1932, New York (no. 44, as The Steerage, 1907, gelatin silver print)
1937, New York, MoMA (no. 336, as The Steerage, 1907, photogravure from 291)
1937, New York, American Place (no. 19, as The Steerage, 1907)
1939, San Antonio (no. 130, as The Steerage, 1907, photogravure)
1940, New York (as The Steerage)
1944, Philadelphia (no. 20, as Steerage, 1907, photogravure)
Lifetime Publications
A reproduction of this work appeared in the following publication(s) during Alfred Stieglitz’s lifetime:
Camera Work 36 (October 1911): pl. 9 (ill., The Steerage, 1907)
Saturday Evening Mail (20 April 1912): cover, magazine section (ill., The Steerage)
291 7–8 (September–October 1915): insert (ill., The Steerage, photogravure)
Marius de Zayas, “The Steerage,” American Photography 10 (March 1916): 121 (ill., The Steerage)
Artlover 2:1 (1924): unpaginated (ill., The Steerage, 1907)
“American Photography Honored,” The Outlook 136 (20 February 1924): 297 (ill., The Steerage)
Vanity Fair 21 (August 1924): 54 (ill., Beyond the Quota—in the Steerage)
Waldo Frank et al., America & Alfred Stieglitz (New York, 1934): pl. 26b (ill., The Steerage, 1907)
Louis Adamio, “An Immigrant Who Made Good in America: How Corsi, Who Arrived in the United States at the Age of Ten, Became Boss of Ellis Island,” The New York Herald Tribune Books (27 January 1935): section 7, 3 (ill., The Steerage, 1907)
Thomas Craven, “Stieglitz—Old Master of the Camera,” Saturday Evening Post 216:28 (8 January 1944): 15 (ill., The Steerage)
Georgia Engelhard, “Alfred Stieglitz: Master Photographer,” American Photography 39 (April 1945): 11 (ill., The Steerage)
Note
Image courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art