Spring Showers—The Street-Cleaner

1900/1901, printed 1903/1904

Alfred Stieglitz

Artist, American, 1864 - 1946

Printed with muted tones of gray, a single tall tree with a spindly trunk and sparse canopy grows inside a round cage set into a sidewalk in this tall, narrow photogravure on beige paper. The tree is just left of center. A short distance away, a person wearing a light coat and a dark cap cleans the street along the gutter near the left side of the photograph. The sidewalk and street to our right gleam with rain, and horse-drawn carriages are like smudged silhouettes in the hazy distance. Skyscrapers are barely visible against a misty sky in the top half of this picture.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    photogravure on beige thin slightly textured laid Japanese paper

  • Credit Line

    Alfred Stieglitz Collection

  • Dimensions

    image: 31 x 12.7 cm (12 3/16 x 5 in.)
    sheet (trimmed to mount): 36.2 x 15.9 cm (14 1/4 x 6 1/4 in.)
    mat: 63.5 x 47 cm (25 x 18 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1949.3.259

  • Stieglitz Estate Number

    127A

    Part of Stieglitz Key Set Online Edition

    Learn more

  • Key Set Number

    269

Alfred Stieglitz

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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Georgia O'Keeffe; gift to NGA, 1949.

Associated Names

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. 30, pl. 13.

1994

  • Bender, Thomas, and Carl E. Schorske, eds. Budapest and New York: Studies in Metropolitan Transformation, 1870–1930. New York, 1994: fig. 11.1.

2002

  • Greenough, Sarah. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs. Washington, 2002: vol. 1, cat. 269.

Inscriptions

by Alfred Stieglitz, on print, lower left, in graphite: "Spring Showers"; lower right, in graphite: Alfred Stieglitz; on backing board: center verso, in black ink on International Photographic Exhibition label: 11) Spring Showers—New York (1898) / Alfred Stieglitz / 1111 Madison Avenue, New York; upper center verso, in black ink, on Alfred Stieglitz Collection label: Alfred Stieglitz / Original Proof / Gravure / Stieglitz Exh. Photo-Secession Gallery / 1913—Dresden, 1909—Albright Gallery / 1910; printed on label: 11. Spring Showers, New York—1899; upper right verso: 1944 Philadelphia Museum of Art label

Wikidata ID

Q64034768

Scholarly Remarks and Key Set Data

Remarks

This photograph was taken on Madison Avenue near 23rd Street.

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:

The Art Institute of Chicago, 1949.849

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven

George Eastman Museum, Rochester, 74:0052:0062

Library of Congress, Washington, PH-09 B

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 49.55.14 (inscribed: Spring Showers / Proof by / Alfred Stieglitz)

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 50.831

Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1949-18-51

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 52.1855

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:

1901, London (no. 228, as Spring Showers—The Street Cleaner)
1902, New York (no. 137, as Spring Showers—The Street Sweeper, 1901)
1904, Washington (no. 130, as Spring Showers)
1904, Pittsburgh (no. 221, as Spring Showers)
1904, Paris (no. 668, as Giboulées de printemps, platinum)
1904, The Hague (no. 117, as Spring Showers)
1905, Worcester (no. 386, as Spring Showers)
1909, Dresden (no. 174, as Spring Showers, New York)
1910, Buffalo (no. 428, as Spring Showers, New York, 1899, photogravure)
1913, New York (no. 11, as Spring Showers, New York, 1899)
1921, New York (no. 14, as Spring Showers, New York, 1899)
1924, New York (no. 58, as Spring Showers, 1899)
1932, New York (no. 35, as Street Sweeper and Little Tree, 1896)
1937, New York, MoMA (no. 333, as Spring Showers, New York, 1900, photogravure from Camera Work)
1944, Philadelphia (no. 15, as Spring Showers, New York, 1898–1900?)

Lifetime Publications

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

Camera Notes 5:3 (January 1902): 183 (ill., Spring Showers, The Sweeper)

Outdoor Life 11 (January 1903): 32 (ill., Spring Showers)

John Corbin, “The Twentieth Century City,” Scribner’s Magazine 33:3 (March 1903): 263 (ill., Spring Showers—The Street Cleaner, Madison Square, near Twenty-third Street)

The Work of Alfred Stieglitz [published by Camera Notes] (New York, 1904): unnumbered (ill., Spring Showers—The Street-cleaner, photogravure)

J. Nilsen Laurvik, “Alfred Stieglitz, Pictorial Photographer,” The International Studio 44:174 (August 1911): 25 (ill., Spring Showers)

Camera Work 36 (October 1911): pl. 16 (ill., Spring Showers, New York, 1900)

Georgia Engelhard, “Alfred Stieglitz, Master Photographer,” American Photography 39 (April 1945): 8 (ill., Spring Showers, N.Y.)

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