Charles Demuth
1915
Artist, American, 1864 - 1946
Artwork overview
-
Medium
platinum print
-
Credit Line
-
Dimensions
image: 23.3 × 18.3 cm (9 3/16 × 7 3/16 in.)
sheet: 24.7 × 19.7 cm (9 3/4 × 7 3/4 in.)
mat: 48.7 × 32.1 cm (19 3/16 × 12 5/8 in.) -
Accession
1949.3.354
-
Stieglitz Estate Number
82B
Part of Stieglitz Key Set Online Edition
Learn more -
Key Set Number
394
Alfred Stieglitz
Curious for more Alfred Stieglitz scholarship?
Discover over 1,000 artworks that the artist’s wife Georgia O’Keeffe termed his “Key Set” of prize photographs. Museum scholars have illuminated each work, his career, practices, and lifetime achievements.
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
2001
Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2001
2004
Alfred Stieglitz and His Circle: 1905–1930, Musée d'Orsay, Paris; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2004–2005
Bibliography
1983
Greenough, Sarah, and Juan Hamilton. Alfred Stieglitz: Photographs and Writings. Washington, 1983: no. 56, pl. 28.
1998
Ludington, Townsend. Marsden Hartley: The Biography of an American Artist. 2nd ed. Ithaca and London, 1998: n.p.
2000
Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2001: no. 133.
2002
Greenough, Sarah. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs. Washington, 2002: vol. 1, cat. 394.
Inscriptions
by Alfred Stieglitz, on mount, center left verso, in graphite: Chas. Demurt [sic] 1915 / Exhibition [crossed out] by Stieglitz [underlined]
by George O'Keeffe, on mount, bottom left verso, in graphite: 82 B
by later hand, lower right, in graphite: 7-1944-349; bottom right verso, in graphite: 7-1944-349.
Wikidata ID
Q64034866
Scholarly Remarks and Key Set Data
Remarks
Between 1904 and 1914 the Philadelphia-trained painter Charles Demuth made three long trips to Paris where he became familiar with the latest developments in modern European art. He began to visit 291 as early as 1909, but did not meet Stieglitz until 1912 when Marsden Hartley urged him to introduce himself. Stieglitz included Demuth’s work in the 1925 “Seven Americans” exhibition at the Anderson Galleries and thereafter mounted frequent shows of his paintings and watercolors at the Intimate Gallery and An American Place. Demuth drew great sustenance from the photographer’s support. As Georgia O’Keeffe later noted, “Stieglitz was probably a bit of a steadying hand on [Demuth’s] shoulder. They had a faith in common that neither found too often elsewhere” (as quoted in Emily Farnham, Charles Demuth: Behind a Laughing Mask, Norman, 1971, 166).
In the background of this photograph and Key Set numbers 395, 396, and 397 is Picasso’s charcoal drawing Head of a Man, 1912 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), exhibited at 291 from 12 to 26 January 1915.
Other Collections
A print corresponding with this photograph can also be found in the following collection(s):
Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, Bloomington
Private collection
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:
1944, Philadelphia (no. 176, as Charles Demuth, 1915)