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Module 5: Gelatin silver + Pictorialism

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Stieglitz Essay: Pictorial Photography

"Let me here call attention to one of the most universally popular mistakes that have to do with photography—that of classing supposedly excellent work as professional, and using the term amateur to convey the idea of immature productions and to excuse atrociously poor photographs. As a matter of fact nearly all the greatest work is being, and has always been done, by those who are following photography for the love of it, and not merely for financial reasons. As the name implies, an amateur is one who works for love; and viewed in this light the incorrectness of the popular classification is readily apparent." -Nothing could be farther from the truth than this, and in the photographic world to-day there are recognized but three classes of photographers—the ignorant, the purely technical, and the artistic. -Dr. P.H. Emerson. In his work, "Naturalistic Photography," he says: "Photography has been called an irresponsive medium. This is much the same as calling it a mechanical process. A great paradox which has been combated is the assumption that because photography is not 'hand-work' as the public say—though we find there is very much 'hand-work' and head-work in it—therefore it is not an art language. This is a fallacy born of thoughtlessness. The painter learns his technique in order to speak, and he considers painting a mental process. So with photography, speaking artistically of it, it is a very severe mental process, and taxes all the artist's energies even after he has mastered technique. The point is, what you have to say and how to say it. The originality of a work of art refers to the originality of the thing expressed and the way it is expressed, whether it be in poetry, photography, or painting. -The attitude of the general public toward modern photography was never better illustrated than by the remark of an art student at a recent exhibition. The speaker had gone from "gum-print" to "platinum," and from landscape to genre-study, with evident and ever-increasing surprise; had noted that instead of being purely mechanical, the printing processes were distinctly individual, and that the negative never twice yielded the same sort of print; had seen how wonderfully true the tonal renderings, how strong the portraits, how free from the stiff, characterless countenance of the average professional work, and in a word how full of feeling and thought was every picture shown. Then came the words, "But this is not photography!" Was this true? No! For years the photographer has moved onward first by steps, and finally by strides and leaps, and, though the world knew but little of his work, advanced and improved til he has brought his art to its present state of perfection. This is the real photography, the photography of to-day; and that which the world is accustomed to regard as pictorial photography is not the real photography, but an ignorant imposition.

Photo-Secession (US)

-Early In 1902 that he would form a an elitebody of photographers Those whom he respected most like Edward steichen, clarence white, etc.; this group was the Photo-Secession -the photo secession meaning essentially avant-garde. Stieglitz believe thatif he could find a talented painter who was also devoted to photography as art it would help the cause, and Edward Steichen was that man -Stieglitz always knew the power of publication. Camera Work was a major weapon in his battle forphotography; one of the most beautifulmagazines of any sort ever produced the reproductions the photograph hand pasted onto the pages everything was absolutelythe highest standard; the magazine had a tremendous impact the issue would have been passed fromhand to hand as a treasured document on this was something that has been tremendous importance to many many photographersin shaping their work. -Although camerawork and the Photo-Secession were internationally-acclaimed, Stieglitz ' true ambition was to create agreat Salon of Photography in New York to rival or Eclipse those of Europe but suitable space was impossibleto find or afford. -With Close collaborator Edward steichen a solution was found they would arrange a continuousseries of Highly selective International photography exhibitions in some rooms at 291 5th Avenue which they would convert into galleries -Stieglitz's Photo-Secession in New York (founded in 1902), performedan invaluable role in communicating the aims of art photographers by organizing international exhibitions of Pictorial photography and by publishingdebates about related issues in the pages of their journals. -As the editor of Camera Notes, the journal of theCamera Club of New York—an association of amateur photography enthusiasts—Stieglitz espoused his belief in the aesthetic potential of the mediumand published work by photographers who shared his conviction. When the rank-and-file membership of the Camera Club began toagitate against his restrictive editorial policies, Stieglitz and several like-minded photographers broke away from the group in 1902 to formthe Photo-Secession, which advocated an emphasis on the craftsmanship involved in photography.Most members of the group made extensive use of elaborate, labor-intensive techniques that underscored the role of the photographer's handin making photographic prints Alfred Stieglitz was the most prominent spokesperson for these photographersin America, and in 1902 he and several like-minded associates in the New York Camera Club—including Gertrude Käsebier, Alvin LangdonCoburn, and Frank Eugene -broke away from the club to form what they dubbed the Photo-Secession. The group held exhibitionsof their work in a space called the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession (known familiarly as "291" for its addresson Fifth Avenue) and they published a quarterly magazine edited by Stieglitz entitled Camera Work. -Steichen and Stieglitz cofounded -By the end of World War I, Stieglitz and Steichenwere shedding Pictorial photography's painterly facade in order to promote an unvarnished display of the medium's natural strength—namely, its capacityfor producing a truthful rendering of abstract form and tonal variation in the real world. This new chapter in eachof these artists' styles was a step toward the international phenomenon of modernism in art, and both would mine thatvein to make some of their best work. Stieglitz dissolved the Photo-Secession and Camera Work in 1917, but Käsebier, Coburn,and White continued to make photographs as they had in the early years of the century and became founders ofan organization called the Pictorial Photographers of America in 1916. Although the Photo-Secession members eventually went their separate ways, allof them were instrumental in establishing photography's expressive potential and demonstrating that its value lay beyond reproducing the outlines ofthe world around us. Pictorialist works were as beautifully rendered as any painter's canvas and as skillfully constructed as anygraphic artist's composition. In manipulating the presentation of information in a photographic negative, the Pictorialists injected their own sensibility intoour perception of the image—thereby imbuing it with pictorial meaning. The Photo-Secession -writing in American Amateur Photographer in 1904, critic Sadakichi Hartmann (1867-1944) used an exhibition at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as a spring-board for his thoughts on contemporary photography -not attempting to disguise his distaste, he called the organizers "pictorial extremists, who lay more stress on 'individual expression' than on any other quality" -some works, he scolded, "overstep all legitimate boundaries and deliberately mix up photography with the technical devices of painting and the graphic arts" -he wondered whether the Pictorialist photographers were doing an "injustice to a beautiful method of graphic expression," that is, photography -"why then should not a photographic print look like a photographic print?" -he called instead for a "straightforward depiction" or "straight photography" -one of the organizers of the 1904 Pittsburgh show was the American photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who was well positioned to lead an art movement -through his work as an editor of American Amateur Photographer and Camera Notes, the journal of the Camera Club of New York, Stieglitz knew the work of the major Pictorialist photographers in Europe and America -he wanted Camera Notes to be international in scope, and to make American photography the equal of European painting, much revered in the United States -by the time Camera Club members objected to his aesthetic agenda, Stieglitz had already built up a following of art photographers ready to form their own association -adopting the word "secession" from the art movements in Vienna and Berlin that were "seceding" from conventional academic work, and in the spirit of the Linked Ring, in February 1902 Stieglitz launched the Photo-Secession -three weeks later, the Photo-Secession sponsored a large exhibition of "American Pictorial Photography" with the works of 32 photographers, among them Frank Eugene, F. Holland Day, Gertrude Kasebier, Clarence H. White, and Stieglitz himself -in December, the Photo-Secession issued as a statement of purpose: "The object of the Photo-Secession is: To advance photography as applied to pictorial expression; to draw together those Americans practicing or otherwise interested in the art, and to hold from time to time, at varying places, exhibitions not necessarily limited to the productions of the Photo-Secession or to American Work" -in effect, Stieglitz emphasized American artistic expression while accepting modern, mostly European, art movements -he became a major organizer of the new art photography, but this role was not unprecedented -influential shows had been organized in Berlin by his mentor Hermann Wilhelm Vogel (1834-1898), by the Amateur Photography Club in Vienna, by the Society for the Advancement of Amateur Photography in Hamburg, and of course, at the annual salon sponsored by the Linked Ring -in the United States, too, Clarence White proved an able advocate for photography with the shows he sponsored at the Camera Club of Newark, Ohio -before the founding of the Photo-Secession, F. Holland Day proposed an "American Association of Pictorial Photographers," to be based in Boston -in 1900, he organized an exhibition of about 300 images, called the "new School of American Photography," which was sponsored by the Royal Photographic Society and shown in London, and the next year by the Photo-Club de Paris in the French capital -though Day's photographs were shown by the Photo-Secession, he never formally joined the group, perhaps because of his rivalry with Stieglitz -one advantage Stieglitz possessed with his periodical Camera Work, published from 1903 to 1917 -modeled on fine-art publications, this was printed in decorative typography on deluxe paper; abundant samples of the new photography were mostly reproduced in gravure -other journals advocating art photography included such lavishly illustrated German magazines such as Photographic Review and Art in Photography -Stieglitz enlarged the scope of Camera Work to encompass the other arts and art theory -in 1912, for example, he published selections from Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) -the covers for Camera Work were designed by Edward Steichen (1879-1973), a painter-photographer who was also a founding member of the Photo-Secession -outside Camera Work, Stieglitz continued to promote photography in popular magazines and journals -in a 1903 pamphlet, he manifested the outlook the made him notoriously difficult to work with -in scarcely veiled self-praise, he announced that progress is not achieved by the masses, but by the "fanatical enthusiasm of the revolutionist, whose extreme teaching has saved the mass from utter inertia" -Photo-Secessionists, he announced, possess a feeling of 'rebellion against the insincere attitude of the unbeliever, of the Philistine" -Stieglitz also ran the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, which opened in November 1905 at 291 Fifth Avenue, New York, in Steichen's former studio -Steichen organized the first exhibition at 291, as the gallery became known, followed by a show of French photography selected by Demachy -prints by Hill and Adamson, greatly admired by Pictorialist photographers, were also shown, and reproduced in Camera Work -working with Steichen, Stieglitz showed artwork in other media: drawings by Auguste Rodin, Henri Matisse, and Picasso; watercolors by Paul Cezanne and Picasso; sculpture by Constantin Brancusi and Elie Nadelman; lithographs by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec; artwork by Americans such as Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Georgia O'Keeffe; and children's art and Japanese prints -the 291 gallery regularly showed modern art, including the first American exhibition of Picsasso in 1911 -Stieglitz praised Picasso's "anti photographic" work, meaning that is had renounced the simple vanishing point perspective imposed by the camera -he advocated that art photography should be similarly anti-photographic, not necessarily through -by 1909, the Photo-Secession was open to assault by its own revolutionary rhetoric -a vast 1909 international show in Dresden, Germany, arranged by Stieglitz with Steichen's help, was criticized for "doing nothing new," and some considered the art photography in Camera Work to be repetitive -when asked to prepare a large exhibit for the Albright Gallery (now the Albright-Knox Art Gallery) in Buffalo, New York, Stieglitz staged what photo historian Robert Doty called "a finale" -the 1910 exhibition of about 600 photographs was organized as a retrospective of Pictorialism, with contributors asked to provide old and new work -the show is often cited as marking the historical moment when photography was accepted as an art form worthy of museums -it was also the point at which the creative possibilities of the Pictorialist style were thoroughly explored, though the "fuzzygraph" vocabulary continued for another decade in commerce and advertising, and was popular into the 1930s in many countries, including Spain, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Japan, and South Africa -was Pictorialism an avant-garde movement? -certainly it introduced a visual fashion dominant for thirty years, and mixed painting and photography in a way that anticipated the hybridization of art media in the late 20th and early 21st centuries -at the same time, its sentimental subject matter and its rendition of otherworldly women harked back to the 19th century view of women as angels trapped in a domestic environment -through Stieglitz and 291, art photography did engage with the European avant-garde, such as the fauves and cubists -nevertheless, until the Armory Show in 1913, it was the rebellious spirit of the European avant-garde, rather than their visual strategies, that influenced American art photography -the Pictorialists largely ignored the raw emotionality and anxiety that marked Expressionism, the mainly German art movement much discussed in the 1890s -when Stieglitz and his colleagues took the city as a subject, they did so when atmospheric effects, such as fog, rain, and snow, softened the bleakness -like other late 19th century avant-gardists, the Pictorialists and Photo-Secessionists advocated self-expression as soul preserving in the world of mass production and mass taste -at the same time, their magazines practiced promotional techniques akin to those of the newly formed field of advertising -also they established a network of institutions, publications, and selection strategies to validate their work, while laying claim to unsullied virtue -as historian Ulrich Keller pointed out, art photography was not primarily concerned with art theory so much as with "spiritual exclusiveness," being "away from 'the Philistine' and 'the masses'" -Stieglitz disparaged those who let money taint their art, though of course he was in a financial position that enabled him to take the moral high ground -in 1899, he wrote that "nearly all the greatest work is being, and has always been done by those who are following photography for the love of it, and not merely for financial reasons" -in the age of raging labor disputes, Stieglitz praised working for love, not money -after the horrors of World War I, the ideology of Pictorialism was in full retreat -nevertheless, Pictorial-style photographs continued to be made, especially in advertising and amateur work, despite the challenges of Russian Constructivism, which stressed design as a way for artists to participate in changing society for the better, and European Dadaism, which questioned the plausibility of beauty and purity after the horrors of trench warfare -advocates of art photography have viewed Pictorialism as avant-grade on account of its tendency to stress abstract patterns, which emerged as a key visual characteristic of art photography in the 1920s

Eduard Steichen

Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe

-The fourth member of The Stieglitz Circle would arrive throughan intermediary. Friend had some of O'Keefe's drawings, and she showed them to Stieglitz. "Examining the first drawing charcoal I realized that I hadnever seen anything like it before all my Gloom and tiredness banished finally a woman on paper." He decided he wanted to show them -O'Keefe eventually heard about a show of her work a year later. She went to the show and asked Stieglitz who gave him permission to hang those drawings (she wasn't involved). They went to lunch and he asked her to send the next batch of drawings to him. They then began corresponding -She sent him watercolors eventually. Arthur Dove saw these O'Keeffe watercolors and he said stieglitz this girl is doing naturally with many of us fellows are trying to do and failing; "O'Keefe has done more than paint; she has invented a language" -Stieglitz began photographing again, taking portraits; seem to see into the person -for very many years for a long time he had wanted to make what he came tocall a composite portrait of someone a portrait that would record a person's many moods. between 1917 and 1937 when he stopped photographing he made more than 300 portraits of O'Keefe. -When stieglitz exhibited the O'Keefe portraits for thefirst time in his 1921 exhibition 140 Prints were shown. But it was the O'Keefe photographs that caused asensation. In a part by part revelation of a woman's body in the isolated presentation of a hand abreast a neck acai a leg stiglitz achieved the exact visual equivalent of the record of a hand or face as a travels over the body of the Beloved. -The exhibition made a stir he put her at onceon the map everybody knew the name she became what is known as a newspaper personality. -seemed almost as if they were thinking moreabout stieglitz's portraits of O'Keefe in the nude then they were actually looking at o'keeffe's painting. O'Keefe herself clearlyfelt burned by some of the critical reaction to her paintings. Felt that the critics were over emphasizing thesexual nature of her pictures. -Stieglitz believed women could be outstanding artistsand equal in achievement to the male artist; also is very committed to the idea thata woman was expressing a kind of Sexual Energy in her work because at the time Freud was just knownin America and he had a huge influence on stieglitz -thus interpreted these very Innovative abstractions asthe sexual expression of Georgia O'Keeffe; began to promote her in this way Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz met in 1916, when shepaid a visit to 291 to see an exhibition of Marsden Hartley works. Nearly twenty-four years his junior and justgaining recognition as a painter, O'Keeffe made an immediate impact on Stieglitz—both artistically and emotionally. The two began an avid,often daily correspondence that eventually turned into a passionate affair before they finally married in 1924. O'Keeffe's presence revitalized Stieglitz'sphotography, which he had neglected in favor of the journal Camera Work and his gallery. She first posed for himin the spring of 1917, and as their relationship deepened, he continued to photograph her "with a kind of heatand excitement." Over the next twenty years, he made over three hundred portraits of her—nude and clothed, performing mundane tasksand posing dramatically in front of her paintings, showing her entire body as well as isolated views of her neck,hands, breasts, and feet. - Stieglitz displayed many of these—including, somewhat provocatively, several nudes—for thefirst time as part of his retrospective of photographs at Anderson Galleries in 1921. O'Keeffe wrote that Stieglitz's "idea ofa portrait was not just one picture"; instead, it was a composite of pictures addressing an idea and personality toolarge to fit in a single photograph. - His refusal to encapsulate her personality into a single imagewas consistent with several modernist ideas: the idea of the fragmented sense of self, brought about by the rapid paceof modern life; the idea that a personality, like the outside world, is constantly changing, and may be interrupted butnot halted by the intervention of the camera; and, finally, the realization that truth in the modern world is relativeand that photographs are as much an expression of the photographer's feelings for the subject as they are a reflectionof the subject depicted. -Stieglitz's series of photographs of clouds, which he called Equivalents,were made in a similar spirit, embodying this last idea perfectly. Inspired by a critic's comment that an exhibition ofthe O'Keeffe portraits demonstrated his absolute control over his subject, Stiegltitz decided to photograph clouds—which would not allow such anassertion. The cloud pictures were unmanipulated portraits of the sky that functioned as analogues of Stieglitz's emotional experience at themoment he snapped the shutter, thus 'Equivalents', in the spirit of the term, taken from Symbolist writers and poets suchas Stephane Mallarmé. -his numerous photographs of his second wife, painter Georgia O'Keeffe, show how he, like Picasso, used daily life as a basis for art

Alfred Stieglitz

Born in Hoboken, New Jersey to German immigrant parents in1864, and schooled as an engineer in Germany, Alfred Stieglitz returned to New York in 1890 determined to prove thatphotography was a medium as capable of artistic expression as painting or sculpture. -As the editor of Camera Notes, the journal of theCamera Club of New York—an association of amateur photography enthusiasts—Stieglitz espoused his belief in the aesthetic potential of the mediumand published work by photographers who shared his conviction. When the rank-and-file membership of the Camera Club began toagitate against his restrictive editorial policies, Stieglitz and several like-minded photographers broke away from the group in 1902 to formthe Photo-Secession, which advocated an emphasis on the craftsmanship involved in photography.Most members of the group made extensive use of elaborate, labor-intensive techniques that underscored the role of the photographer's handin making photographic prints, but Stieglitz favored a slightly different approach in his own work. - Although he took great care in producing his prints, oftenmaking platinum prints—a process renowned for yielding images with a rich, subtly varied tonal scale—he achieved the desired affiliation withpainting through compositional choices and the use of natural elements like rain, snow, and steam to unify the components ofa scene into a visually pleasing pictorial whole. -Alfred Stieglitz was the most prominent spokesperson for these photographersin America, and in 1902 he and several like-minded associates in the New York Camera Club—including Gertrude Käsebier, Alvin LangdonCoburn, and Frank Eugene -broke away from the club to form what they dubbed the Photo-Secession. By the end of World War I, Stieglitz and Steichenwere shedding Pictorial photography's painterly facade in order to promote an unvarnished display of the medium's natural strength—namely, its capacityfor producing a truthful rendering of abstract form and tonal variation in the real world. This new chapter in eachof these artists' styles was a step toward the international phenomenon of modernism in art, and both would mine thatvein to make some of their best work. Stieglitz dissolved the Photo-Secession and Camera Work in 1917 -Stieglitz's series of photographs of clouds, which he called Equivalents,were made in a similar spirit, embodying this last idea perfectly. Inspired by a critic's comment that an exhibition ofthe O'Keeffe portraits demonstrated his absolute control over his subject, Stiegltitz decided to photograph clouds—which would not allow such anassertion. The cloud pictures were unmanipulated portraits of the sky that functioned as analogues of Stieglitz's emotional experience at themoment he snapped the shutter, thus 'Equivalents', in the spirit of the term, taken from Symbolist writers and poets suchas Stephane Mallarmé. --through his work as an editor of American Amateur Photographer and Camera Notes, the journal of the Camera Club of New York, Stieglitz knew the work of the major Pictorialist photographers in Europe and America -he wanted Camera Notes to be international in scope, and to make American photography the equal of European painting, much revered in the United States -by the time Camera Club members objected to his aesthetic agenda, Stieglitz had already built up a following of art photographers ready to form their own association -adopting the word "secession" from the art movements in Vienna and Berlin that were "seceding" from conventional academic work, and in the spirit of the Linked Ring, in February 1902 Stieglitz launched the Photo-Secession --in effect, Stieglitz emphasized American artistic expression while accepting modern, mostly European, art movements -he became a major organizer of the new art photography, but this role was not unprecedented -outside Camera Work, Stieglitz continued to promote photography in popular magazines and journals -in a 1903 pamphlet, he manifested the outlook the made him notoriously difficult to work with -in scarcely veiled self-praise, he announced that progress is not achieved by the masses, but by the "fanatical enthusiasm of the revolutionist, whose extreme teaching has saved the mass from utter inertia" -Photo-Secessionists, he announced, possess a feeling of 'rebellion against the insincere attitude of the unbeliever, of the Philistine" -Stieglitz also ran the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, which opened in November 1905 at 291 Fifth Avenue, New York, in Steichen's former studio Alfred Stieglitz -took up photography as an engineering student in Berlin, studying photochemistry with Hermann Vogel -early work includes familiar tranquil scenes and all-over blurriness of Pictorialism, but his depiction of light and textures is clearer than Pictorialist photography -for instance, Sun's Rays-- Paula, Berlin (1889) delientates the bands of light that pass through the shutter slats outside the room -the technical virtuosity required to create a photograph in this lighting would be understood by photographers, but the personal symbols Stieglitz included would be grasped only be his immediate circle -on the wall behind his companion, Paula, are photographs of and by Stieglitz himself; one of them shows the letter-writer in bed, suggesting the couple's intimate relationship -the Valentine hearts and caged bird also speak to the private subject within a subject, a favorite visual strategy that Stieglitz would use throughout his life -when he returned to the US from Europe in 1890, he worked for five years at the Photochrome Engraving Company in New York, and continued to make photographs -his marriage to Emmeline Obermeyer, a woman of financial means, and an allowance from his father, permitted him to leave the business and pursue photography full-time -his street photographs in NYC and during extended European trips centered on such everyday scenes as horse-drawn streetcars, rain-slicked avenues, and street children -foreshadowing the 1904 critique of Sadakichi hartmann, Stieglitz's images in the 1890s became more straightforward, with an increasing emphasis on form rather than atmosphere -his interests in contemporary art moved toward urban realism, like that of Anerican painter Robert Henri, whom Stieglitz nonetheless accused of making "colored photographs" -Stieglitz also responded to the geometric experiments of sucg European painters as Pablo Picasso -while sailing on a trip to Europe aboard the Kaiser Wilhelm II, Stieglitz experienced what he recalled as a pivotal moment in his understanding of art -looking into the steerage section of the ship, he saw there not the disheartened immigrants returning to Europe, but a combination of abstract forms that evoked a profound response -decades later, he contended that The Steerage would best represent him, if all his other images were destroyed -recent research suggests that he created an aura around this image to prove his early connection of abstraction and symbolism, as well as his knack for transforming the ordinary into pictures, as in his Equivalents -the instantaneous visual recognition of a personal, not public, symbol informed much of Stieglitz's photography -his numerous photographs of his second wife, painter Georgia O'Keeffe, show how he, like Picasso, used daily life as a basis for art -when Stieglitz and his colleagues took the city as a subject, they did so when atmospheric effects, such as fog, rain, and snow, softened the bleakness -like other late 19th century avant-gardists, the Pictorialists and Photo-Secessionists advocated self-expression as soul preserving in the world of mass production and mass taste -at the same time, their magazines practiced promotional techniques akin to those of the newly formed field of advertising -also they established a network of institutions, publications, and selection strategies to validate their work, while laying claim to unsullied virtue -as historian Ulrich Keller pointed out, art photography was not primarily concerned with art theory so much as with "spiritual exclusiveness," being "away from 'the Philistine' and 'the masses'" -Stieglitz disparaged those who let money taint their art, though of course he was in a financial position that enabled him to take the moral high ground -in 1899, he wrote that "nearly all the greatest work is being, and has always been done by those who are following photography for the love of it, and not merely for financial reasons" -in the age of raging labor disputes, Stieglitz praised working for love, not money -Strand credited Stieglitz for creating, through Camera Work, a true American art -everyone laughed when Stieglitz showed his picture of a carriage in the snow because it was blurred, but he said that's how he wanted it -What Stieglitz was driving at was a new vision for a modern world. Teach America to see and photography was the epitome of a new way of seeing. He is known as the father of modern photography but for this rebel against complacent acceptance of the past photography was not enough. -In Paris a visual Revolution was brewing in the early nineteen hundreds. A revolt against outmoded conventions in art. Stieglitz new the future when he saw it you would boldly introduce these avant-garde Worksto America to shock the world of the Arts out of its blind attachment to the past and to Open The Eyes of America to the 20th century. - This legendary figure complex. Difficult full of contradictions inspired either devotion or irritation. The gentlest and kindest of men Stieglitz could be autocratic and brutally critical. Critics claim that is selfless devotion to Art was matched by his Devotion to his own fame. Stieglitz Noble idealism wrestle with his human frailties for he was above all intensely human. -it was the burningidea of Photography pushing its possibilities even further that kept him photographing; challenge existing limits -father sent to study mechanical engineering, but he quickly abandoned it for photography - - generous allowance from father, so could travel and photography -didn't understand how photography couldn't be art, so he wanted to make it one -when he was 26 and his sister died, he recognized family wanted him to settle down, so he tried to be a businessman and husband, but he failed at both -in 1893, he married Emmaline Overmeyer, close friend of the family and wealthy heiress; natures in conflict as she bourgeois and he was artistic and rebellious against society she held dear; this was clear even on honeymoon as she wanted to go to fancy dinners and such and he dragged her to peasant places and lonely shores for photos -then had daughter Kitty; didn't help marriage, but she was favorite subject of his when she was a child - Stieglitz passion for photography lefthim little time or taste for family life -roamed New York with his camera since document the New York of transition the old gradually passing into the new; The ideaexisted the New York was typical of modernity typical of the promise of the future -at the very turn ofthe century another idea began to filter into public awareness that the the very greatness of New York City wasawaiting is visual representation in the Arts. -American impressionist artists who first began toexplore New York City as a subject, But it was photography that would form our modern visionof the city. -However for many critics photography was more of a threatthan a promise. (Charles Baudelaire) -for many, like documentary photographers Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis, the camera was a machine to recordFaithfully what it's saw -to a small but growing number of photographers proudly proclaiming themselves amateurs, this machine could produce art; prove it by making their pictures as muchlike paintings as possible. -called Pictorialism, was the modern avant-garde photography of its time. - Stieglitz's photographsare significantly different from many pictorial photography turned his camera on the subjects that were immediately around him and mostof his photographs were. Emphatically of their time - 1902 was certainly a watershed year for stiglitz a realturning point it was then that his impatience with the lack of seriousness on the part of most of the Camera club members really blow out over he was being snorted to imposed and his dictatorial way his very highstandards of what photography should be -Early In 1902 that he would form a an elitebody of photographers Those whom he respected most like Edward steichen, clarence white, etc.; this group was the Photo-Secession -the photo secession meaning essentially avant-garde. Stieglitz believe thatif he could find a talented painter who was also devoted to photography as art it would help the cause, and Edward Steichen was that man -Stieglitz always knew the power of publication. Camera Work was a major weapon in his battle forphotography; one of the most beautifulmagazines of any sort ever produced the reproductions the photograph hand pasted onto the pages everything was absolutelythe highest standard; the magazine had a tremendous impact the issue would have been passed fromhand to hand as a treasured document on this was something that has been tremendous importance to many many photographersin shaping their work. -Although camerawork and the Photo-Secession were internationally-acclaimed, Stieglitz ' true ambition was to create agreat Salon of Photography in New York to rival or Eclipse those of Europe but suitable space was impossibleto find or afford. -With Close collaborator Edward steichen a solution was found they would arrange a continuousseries of Highly selective International photography exhibitions in some rooms at 291 5th Avenue which they would convert into galleries -On the evening of November 5th 1905 the little galleries of the photo secession openedan exhibition it amounted to a miniature but superb Salon of American photography and it made photographic history. But thefirst time Americans had a continuing opportunity to see masterpieces of Photography from both Europe and America. -Steichen then became the finder of art in Europe while Steiglitz handled the 291 gallery, avoiding his wife -Stieglitz prided himself on not using Emmys money for 291or camera work covering expenses with his own income from his father, subscriptions and print sales -For five years from 1902 to 1907 stiglitz rarely usedhis camera promoting other photographers at the sacrifice of his own work -Now a shipboard experience with stir him to create oneof his most memorable images. In June 1907 was sailing with his wife and daughter and photographed steerage; "saw shapes related to one another a picture ofshapes and underlying it a new vision that held me."; picture based on related shapes and deepest human feeling. -Stieglitz might not get it but he was always drawnto the new and ready to promote it especially if it was likely to shock a brief while public. -exhibited Rodin's drawings; one of the firstintroductions of Modern Art to America; The show opened January 2nd 1908 and caused a sensation; critics had a field day with it as most was derision for the drawings -It was in avery scandalous exhibition in the minds of many New Yorkers at the time not only because the drawing seem tobe very unfinished but also because they were clearly studies of nude models who had been a prancing before rodin in his Studio -Among the visitors to the show was the Young art student Georgia O'Keeffe.Who would one day change the course of stieglitz life -Steichen wrote about another exhibition (drawings by Matisse) which were extremely abstract; anarchist of art; eventually also Cezanne's work -certainkind of Social Circle developed around 291; therewasn't any other place where people would not be doing just academic things. -collected around him groups of peoplewho were among the most creative intelligent people of their time and not just artists not just photographers, But critics poets musicians. brought all these people together and said on the extraordinary interchange of ideas that occurredin these spaces. -part of the enjoyment Stieglitz got from 291 was due to the communal work with his friends and community; free exchange of ideas (comes from roots as both his parents supported the arts, so naturally respected it) -after 291, cafes of Greenwich Village downtown we're all in the nextstop -radical ideas an artand politics hotly-debated the endless talk found its way into prints and Publications vital to American modernism Greenwich Village becamea kind of hard but Center for a new kind of culture in New York it was in opposition tothe dominant but I would call Brownstone culture, Victorian America, or a Bourgeois New York, and it was the nextgeneration of a group of men and women who thought of themselves as a generation in Rebellion against their Bourgeoisparents and they wanted something more real more vital. -past needed to be criticized and in some sense to be overthrown; rebellious revolution culturally and politically -Stieglitz recongized Picasso as a kindred spirit; in 1911 stieglitz gavethe artist his first one man. Show in America at 291; New York reeled from the shock. -The Metropolitan Museum had refused to buy the Picasso's buta 1910 for stieglitz a far more important purchase Crown his 20-year struggle for the entry of Photography into anAmerican Fine Arts Museum; the Albright Gallery bought 15 photographs accepting her condition at the photographs be hung on aregular basis on an equal footing with each other in the gallery. Battle has been won. -Although pictorialism at serve to open Museum Doors by thetime Victory had come stiglitz was convinced that it was the photography of the past. Once begins to show Matisse's. Picasso's, and Rodin's watercolors at 291 and then realizes that there's a whole new vision that is coming into being inthe visual arts he is really infused with that Spirit of defiance of conventions in theother Visual Arts in painting that he wishes photography to align itself with that spirit. -Camera work reflected the change in stieglitz Vision it movedaway from photography to publish more and more avant-garde art; resentful photographers cancel their subscription. -Camera work was well known for publishing distinguished writing onthe Arts. But these new modern arts demanded writing as radical as its images. -The first real competition to the Gallery 291 came in1913 with a great Armory show in New York City bringing together from here and abroad the greatest collection ofModern Art ever seen in this country -at first stieglitz was very supportive; In many ways the Armory show was really a Vindicationof all that stiglitz have been working for for the last five years after all he was a major exhibitionof mainly modern European art in this country and stieglitz prior to that time had been the only person whohad shown any interest on a really serious level of showing that work to the American public. -The greatestnumber of workswere impressionist post-impressionist fauvist and Cubist. 210 American Works were shown. But it was theEuropean art that caused a sensation. -Papers had cartoons and caricatures calling these artists fakes, insane, or anarchists -Duchamp's picture nude descending a staircase became afavorite Target. -The negative publicity brought enormous crowds; more than 87,000 people in New York alone. -Patrons were paying large prices for the same European paintingsthat stieglitz had returned to unsold to Paris. He said, "Work is an art until enough noise is made aboutit until someone Rich comes along and buys it." -After the great success of the Armory show a numberof dealers began showing more and more modest work and stieglitz felt that he had accomplished what he had setout to do. The Armory show was not only a watershed for Modern Art in the US it wasa turning point for Alfred stieglitz and American art - the European moderns had achieved success but only a fraction ofthe works sold were American America's avant-garde was still unappreciated and undervalued; the Rebel needed a new cause and itwas waiting for him - Alfred stieglitz would lead the campaign for American art "not in the name of chauvinism because one's own children must come first." -American art had not been ignored at 291 between 1908and 1914 and what we're called the biggest small rooms in the world stieglitz gave Pioneer American modern their firstpublic recognition. -Knowing how limited were his resources in 1909 his DiscerningI would select three young painters with the greatest potential to whom he would become Mentor protector father friend. 7 years later he would discover the 4th. This time the artist was a woman (O'Keefe). -Beginning with John Marin the story of the celebrated stieglitzcircle is unique in the history of American modernism. He saw the potential in Marin to capture the energy that was to be New York. Andit was Marin's great gift to that generation then to look out in the city and to begin to liberatehis line and find his line moving in the staccato Rhythm of the modern city. -Arthur Dove's struggle as an artist would be the mostdifficult of the Stieglitz circle. Was an illustrator and gave it up, so father cut him off; began working 12 hour days on a farm, so very little timeto work and to pursue many of these breakthroughs -soon after the show of his work at the 291 Gallery 1910he picks a very limited palette. Greens and Browns, earthtones and he begins to paint the moment that natureawakens to him. And the uniqueness in the originality of that invention stunned New York today. He is claimed as America's first great abstract painter. -Stieglitz argued why buy the work of artists who were long dead Who cannot benefit from the purchase. Why not helpartists who are alive who need the money now in order to do more work -he kept a running fund into which he put money he received from the sale of his own friends, a percentage of the sale priceof every work he sold from the gallery, some of the money from his own independent income and use thatfund to help artists in any way he could. -like Marin and Dove, Marsden Hartley discovered an entirely new world at 291; told stiglitz that wanted to show nowhere else, that the spirit of no other Gallery was ofany interest to me and I swore that I could live on $4 a week. -Alfred Stieglitz was so amazed to hear anybody beso simple this to be wanting to be alone $4 a week -Hartley desperately wanted to go to Paris, and Stieglitz made it happen. When he meets of an exciting International group of artistshe explodes. -The fourth member of The Stieglitz Circle would arrive throughan intermediary. Friend had some of O'Keefe's drawings, and she showed them to Stieglitz. "Examining the first drawing charcoal I realized that I hadnever seen anything like it before all my Gloom and tiredness banished finally a woman on paper." He decided he wanted to show them -O'Keefe eventually heard about a show of her work a year later. She went to the show and asked Stieglitz who gave him permission to hang those drawings (she wasn't involved). They went to lunch and he asked her to send the next batch of drawings to him. They then began corresponding -She sent him watercolors eventually. Arthur Dove saw these O'Keeffe watercolors and he said stieglitz this girl is doing naturally with many of us fellows are trying to do and failing; "O'Keefe has done more than paint; she has invented a language" -Stieglitz began photographing again, taking portraits; seem to see into the person -His portrait of the young Paul Strand reveals stieglitz regard and affection for the only photographer chosen for the 291 Stieglitz group. It was stieglitz who became then the major influence on strand's development as a photographer and as an artist. Advised to get rid of soft focus -issue of camera work was devoted to Paul strand. His work is rooted in the best tradition of Photography; the work is brutally Direct. LAST ISSUE OF CAMERA WORK (started in 1902 with pictorial photography, advanced photography of the time, and ended in 1917 with Paul Strand, advanced photography of the time) -theportraits which did in 1916; did with the idea of photographing people without thembeing aware they were being photographed; the technique used was a false lens screwed to the side of my reflexcamera. Their portraits that have an amazing power to them also strengthen and dignity as well these were photographsthat Stieglitz felt were particularly powerful statements of what the new photography could be all about. -bowls and other abstractions were the result of seeing at 291 the work of Picasso and others; trying toapply their strange abstract principles to Photography -WWI occurred: Steichen enlisted and was changed forever by the suffering he saw; Stieglitz and 291 were devastated bythe war; as a pacifist and with happy memories of his youth in Germany he could not joinin the war time fever And the anti-german Hysteria. This refusal made him and 291 suspect in themilitant war-time atmosphere. -decided to not continue 291 and Camera Work. Badly hit by war -It was the winter of 1917-1918, the coldest winter New York had experienced in years. Had no working place, club, or money. During this dark time, the growing intimacy of his correspondence with O'Keefe sustained him -O'Keefe was teaching in Texas, and she decided to come to New York. Stieglitz wanted it all tobe her and pulse so he told her what would be available to her if she came to New Yorkthat she would have a year in which the paint and if she would have a place to live thatwas her own; didn't try to persuade her -within a month's Alfred wasliving in the studio with her -for very many years for a long time he had wanted to make what he came tocall a composite portrait of someone a portrait that would record a person's many moods. between 1917 and 1937 when he stopped photographing he made more than 300 portraits of O'Keefe. -When stieglitz exhibited the O'Keefe portraits for thefirst time in his 1921 exhibition 140 Prints were shown. But it was the O'Keefe photographs that caused asensation. In a part by part revelation of a woman's body in the isolated presentation of a hand abreast a neck acai a leg stiglitz achieved the exact visual equivalent of the record of a hand or face as a travels over the body of the Beloved. -The exhibition made a stir he put her at onceon the map everybody knew the name she became what is known as a newspaper personality. -seemed almost as if they were thinking moreabout stieglitz's portraits of O'Keefe in the nude then they were actually looking at o'keeffe's painting. O'Keefe herself clearlyfelt burned by some of the critical reaction to her paintings. Felt that the critics were over emphasizing thesexual nature of her pictures. -Stieglitz believed women could be outstanding artistsand equal in achievement to the male artist; also is very committed to the idea thata woman was expressing a kind of Sexual Energy in her work because at the time Freud was just knownin America and he had a huge influence on stieglitz -thus interpreted these very Innovative abstractions asthe sexual expression of Georgia O'Keeffe; began to promote her in this way -So she seems very consciously in the middle of the1920s to have changed her art not working so much in abstraction what she felt had gotten her into someof the more Freudian interpretation Strother to focus on close up studies of fruits and vegetables and of course itwas also at this time that she began to do her highly magnified views of flowers which of course Ionly gave the critics more fuel for their Freudian interpretation. Wants to make as objective as possible -Stieglitz and O'Keefe got married; not sure why -in summer of 1922, Stieglitz's mother was dying; estate was going to pieces; all about was disintegration -decide to make series of cloud pictures to show photographs not due to subject matter; they were free; more than that, it was his sorrow his fear about hismother who was obviously dying and find something which was distant so that he could create some kind of emotionaldistance for himself. He was speaking with the clouds instead of with a person or with a landscape. -What is a greatest importance is to hold a moment, to record something so completely that those who see it will relive and equivalent of what is expressed -also began to see that it was a way ofexploring abstraction in photography. - fundamental suppositions of the modern is atremendous break with the past and one of the things World War 1 represents is that kind of break withthe historical culture of Europe. After the war, a wide range of American intellectuals searched for a distinctive American stylethey were a variety of efforts. Georgia O'Keeffe called it the Great American thing (ex: Great America poem The Great American novel they evenwanted to paint the Great American picture.) -said how she said with him jumping off and goingto Europe with the Great American thing ever going to happen. -For many years stieglitz had pioneered a lonely battle forrecognition and support of American art and American artists. Now that everyone had jumped on the American bandwagon he moved to assert his leadership in 1925 - the exhibition 7 Americans brought his artists together for the first time itwas a landmark event for modern American art and the dazzling Triumph for The Stieglitz Circle. -seven Americansare explorers their creative self discovery means nothing less than the discovery of America's independent role in the history ofArt. Be enthusiastic response to the show confirm for stieglitz that the time had come to open a newspace for stieglitz -the intimate Gallery was a new pulpit. the American Artist by expressing his individual self whogive modern expression to the American soul. -That notion of a great American thing seems to mea very powerful way to think about what artists modern artists in the 1920s were doing whether they were thestieglitz circle. Or the precisionist. Or little bit later the regionalist they all had a similar goal even though they approached it through very different means -stieglitz was far from pleased when his vision forAmerican art was challenged by others especially the precisionists I like to call them the machine ages. They werefascinated by Manhattan they were fascinated by modernity, specifically in the new industrial and high-rise structures. Inthe new technologies that were proliferating at the time. ... -Among those artists we include people like Joseph Stella andhis Brooklyn Bridge painting. -Charles demuth is the figure 5 ingold is a magnificent precisionist view of a rushing fire engine going down the street of Manhattan. -Charles Sheeleris a whole series of photographs and paintings based on the Ford Motor plant. -They want so we're interestedin what might have been known and steglitz circle assort of vulgar America, product America, brand name America -The Machine age has a lot of stieglitz as alittle old-fashioned and his point of view in his love for Spiritual content and emotional and expressive character instead of his view that the machine Ages were indulging in a love affair with bass capitalist and material America -what he really wanted to do was to raise the level of spiritual life in America above what he saw ascrass materialism by refining the sensibilities of the American public - he became a missionaryfor a new art, a new America -he promoted a movement which he was at the head of andto an extraordinary degree - his own history of himself became the history of modernism and what we now have tolook at a little more critically it is his ability to articulate his own view as the view of whatthe modern in America was about and it was exclusionary even as it promoted what was unquestionably work of considerableMerit -he was autocratic he was highly selective he was not very Democratic and he really always maintained their notionthat he was fighting for the right cause against the kind of Dull, shallow public that couldn't really understand what he was saying. -And he had devotes around him who were caught upin his Evangelical fervour increasingly they began to write about him as a kind of Messiah Prophet a figure whohad led the people out of the Wilderness and into a new religion a religion of culture and art andthat image of himself. -Clearly he was driven by some idea of Fame and his manner have all the marks of a grandiosity that he felt he was capable of speaking the truth. -He was very possessive; Though he viewed himself as a teacher he was neverable to take pride in his students. When they left him (Having absorbed his lessons they had to grow away fromhim) and he never recognized that; he felt always as though he was being betrayed and this was with usas bright drama because they had given them everything that he could and then I left him -when those people mightfeel like they had matured somewhat and had come to a position where they assumed that they were more onan equal footing with stieglitz hit a difficult time often accepting that and so throughout his life he had anumber of falling outs with people who had been very ... close friends; steichen and stieglitz quarreled and didn't speak for many years -always an elitist; Steichen increasingly became a populist -e saw himself as a photographer who could do workof a standard that could satisfy stieglitz but I could reach an enormously broad popular audience. He was the highest paid photographer in the world, butstieglitz felt that steichen had sold out. -Stieglitz believed in art for arts sake, but he did not have to earn a living, whereas Steichen had to earn a living -Stieglitz and O'Keefe lived on 30th floor of building and began to use the views in their work; work was very different, but still interested in each other's work -she painted skyscrapers, but once moved to New Mexico, began painting that -The modernist were seeking to create a kind of paintingthat the resonated with American qualities and American scenes. Subjects that only an American would paint -Marsden Hartley wasthe first to come. Paul strand came later it with his wife Rebecca Strand and then Georgia O'Keeffe came in1929. -Stieglitz heart condition combined with Santa fe's high-altitude forbade his coming to New Mexico. Since childhood his Summers were always spend at the family'sLake George property. There he found renewal and familiar beloved subjects for hiscamera. -he thought O'Keefe wouldn't come back, but she did -Stieglitz's disciples found a new gallery space for him; The funds for an American Place were raised for stieglitz by Paul Strand and 25 year-old Dorothy Norman whose Devotion to the new Gallery was matched only by her Devotion to stieglitz himself -Norman's job as stieglitz's scribe and gallery assistant would result in books and Publications that contributed heavilyto stieglitz Legend and for a while her role is as Muse and model would cause tensions in his marriage to O'Keefe. -The gallery open shortly after the 1929 stock market crash, but in spite of The Bleak marketfor art during the Depression, an American Place meant stieglitz could see through the work begun at 291. -Maran, Dove, and O'Keefe could be free to continue to experiment and develop. The fact that the only twophotographer stieglitz chose to introduce their. Woody young Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter testifies to the old man's undimmed eyefor talent -there was a great effort to documentthe depression by the government sent out some of the greatest photographers of our time. Extraordinary photographs showing what the conditions were in America. -Intellectual World moved West writers and artists wanted their art havesomething to say and hopefully even do with the crisis that the society was going through -Stieglitz, although a person of the left, couldn't find a way to relate to all of this. Probably because of anarchist spirit and individualism was out of place with collectivist emerging in the 30s -Stieglitz's break with Paul Strand was of a very political nature with coming of Great Depression -had helped establish an American Place, turned away when felt Stieglitz was using the AMERICAN Place as an ivory tower and moved more towards art as a political tool, something Stieglitz abhorred -Strand felt Stieglitz was irrelevant -increasingly comes to seem to younger photographers, especially those in in the documentary mode, who came through the FSA, that Stieglitz was excessively in love with himself and excessively egotistical -tone of Stieglitz's work changed in dramatically in the 1930s; becomes cooler, sharper, and crisper, but also many have a kind of elegiac quality to them; beautiful and monumental, but something sad and lonely about -"I feel my age not with sadness nofear but rather with a growing sense that I'm inadequate to the responsibilities that I've undertaken. I dare count on no one and my save myenergy so that I can at least follow through what I have begun." -laid down camera in 1937 and died in 1946; to end of life was running galleries, showing artists, and making sure criticism was written about them -Stieglitz stood for the freedom of the artist and he did have a fierce kindof determination and heroic determination to be free. To be free and in a place where it was possible to speak the truth as you see it in your particular medium and for that earned a major placein the history of culture in the United States in the world in the 20th century.

Gertrude Kasebier

Gertrude Kasebier -Kasebier (1852-1934) was probably the most successful American portrait photographer in the first decade of the 20th century -lije Julia Margaret Cameron, Kasebier came to photography later in life, first as a hobbyist, then as an art photographer, and finally as a sought-after portraitist -her photographs of women sometimes relied on implicit storytelling in the manner of Lady Hawarden -Blessed Art Thou among Women (1899) shows a mother about to send her child into the world -the mother ande child theme, prominent in Kasebier's photography, was often depicted with the mother helping the child negotiate the passage into life, rather than holding the child close -the photograph, with its religious overtones, is a portrait study of Agnes Rand lee and her daughter Peggy -a print of the the Annunciation (when the Angel Gabriel appears to the Virgin Mary) hangs on the wall behind the figures -Agnes Lee is dressed in loose, flowing robes, as advocated by British artist and reformer William Morris (1834-1896) -soon after the photograph was made, Peggy Lee died -Agnes then posed as a the sorrowful mother in Kasebier's 1904 photograph The Heritage of Motherhood -Kasebier's photographs were honored abroad, and she was elected to the Linked Ring in 1900 -Blessed Art Thou among Women was included in the first exhibition of the Photo-Secession, and her work was showcased in the first issue of Camera Work (January 1903) -Kasebier's sensuous Portrait-- Miss N. redresses the saccharine charms of motherhood so much associated with her work -it depicts Evelyn Nesbitt, the 18 year old model, actress, and mistress of prominent architect Standford White -Nesbitt figured in a sensational early 20th century scandal and murder fictionakized by E.L. Doctorow in the novel Ragtime (1975): she married railroad heir Harry K. Thaw, who, spurred by jealousy over her previous relationship with Stanford White, shot him dead in 1906 Photographer Gertrude Käsebier once asked, "Why should not the cameraas a medium for the interpretation of art as understood by painters, sculptors, and draughtsmen, command respect?" -Trained at the progressive Pratt Institute in the late 19thcentury, she quickly established herself as a pictorial photographer—part of a movement devoted to the medium as an art form—and focused on portraits andthemes such as motherhood. To evoke an ethereal atmosphere, and distinguish her prints from those of commercial photographers and amateursnap shooters, Käsebier combined darkroom manipulation with forceful compositions and a delicate tonal range. - Informed by her childhood on the Great Plains, Käsebier photographedDakota Sioux performers who toured with Buffalo Bill's Wild West spectacle at her New York studio. These sittings—which resulted inportraits of figures such as Joe Black Fox and American Horse and his wife—aspired to sensitive portrayals of individuals. Butthey also attest to the complex power dynamics by which these performers had to conform to preconceived ideas about whatconstituted an authentic identity. - As a principal member of the Photo-Secession Käsebier's work frequentlytook up themes of women and children, domestic interiors, and similar subjects that were felt at the time tobe most appropriate for a woman photographer. - In reality, Käsebier herself was a very independent, bohemian woman.She said "I earn my own money. I pay my own bills. I carry my own license," this is whatshe said of the work she did in her own studio which was known for its comfortable atmosphere and understateddecor. Sitters included actress Evelyn Nesbit, architect Stanford White, author Mark Twain, artist Robert Henri, and photographers F. Holland Dayand Edward Steichen. -the Photo-Secession sponsored a large exhibition of "American Pictorial Photography" with the works of 32 photographers, among them Frank Eugene, F. Holland Day, Gertrude Kasebier, Clarence H. White, and Stieglitz himself

Clarence H. White

In 1902 Clarence White helped found the Photo-Secession, alongside AlfredStieglitz. After a few years of making a living as atraveling portraitist, White moved with his family in 1906 to New York City. -A year later he was hired toteach the first photography course to be given at Columbia University, a circumstance that enabled him to renounce commercial work.In 1910 he and several friends—including Day, Käsebier, and the painter Max Weber—began a summer school, held first on SeguinIsland in Maine and later in East Canaan, Conn. -Encouraged by his friends, White in 1914 opened the Clarence H.White School of Photography in New York City. He also taught at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts andSciences. -His influence on the next generation of photographers was notable; many among his students—who included Laura Gilpin, Margaret Bourke-White,Dorothea Lange, Paul Outerbridge, Ralph Steiner, and Doris Ulmann—went on to becomesuccessful photographers. - As a Pictorialist, White uses platinum and photogravure and gum printing, and the soft-edgedtonality that by now has become quite familiar in a number of these Pictorialist images, but when you look moreclosely at his photography, there's always a very strong sense of structure, of composition that goes on in them. -This perhaps accounts for his influencein the next generation of photographers who abandon all the soft-focus Pictorialist aesthetic, in favor of a much harder-edged commercial-looking approach to photography, something that worked really well in advertisingin the 1920s and 30s, and in other fields as well. -Although White had become a socialist early in hiscareer, he did not consider the camera a tool for social change but regarded the medium as a means ofexpressing beauty. Until the end of his life, he continued to promote artistic photography through teaching, exhibitions, and associations withadvertising art directors. The genteel subject matter and subtle lighting effects visible in his work came to epitomize the Pictorialistapproach to photography at the start of the century. -Stieglitz dissolved the Photo-Secession and Camera Work in 1917, but Käsebier, Coburn,and White continued to make photographs as they had in the early years of the century and became founders ofan organization called the Pictorial Photographers of America in 1916. -American photographer Clarence H. White was also elected to the Linked Ring -White's photographs centered on familiar Pictorialist themes, rendered with delicate atmospheric effects (Morning) -through his teaching at Columbia University in New York City, White became influential in American photography -eventually, he went on to found a photography school in his own name in 1914; his students included such luminaries as Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, and Paul Outerbridge -White was hired at Columbia by the painter and theorist Arthur Wesley Dow, whose understanding of notan, a Japanese concept of graphic patterning that interpreted the relationship of positive and negative spaces, was widely experimented with by the Pictorialists -in 2002, when Dow's large photographic work came to light, its flat, geometric patterning suggested that the Pictorialists may have learned directly from his art, as well as his theory -the Photo-Secession sponsored a large exhibition of "American Pictorial Photography" with the works of 32 photographers, among them Frank Eugene, F. Holland Day, Gertrude Kasebier, Clarence H. White, and Stieglitz himself -in the United States, too, Clarence White proved an able advocate for photography with the shows he sponsored at the Camera Club of Newark, Ohio -Pictorialism's emphasis on nature and the natural gave rise to studies of the male and female nude, created by White, Steichen, Demachy, Puyo, and Anne Brigman (1869-1950), among others

Photograuvre

Next best to platinum printing at capturing tones, it was a printing process in the 1870s/80s used for the early conversion from photo negative to print for newspapers (make plate which registers halftones) gravure, a technique favored by Pictorialists because it suppressed detail) the gravure process allowed photographers to translate their photographs into printer's ink by means of a copper plate that was etched by chemicals, then inked, and printed on a hand-turned printing press

Bromoil print

Oil pigments in mix for print

George Davison

The Onion Field -The gum process became very popular among Pictorialist photographers likeGeorge Davison. It's often layered with other printing techniques, and combined with other things as here with pinhole photography. -Davisonshot this image using a camera with no lens on it, just a small pinhole aperture, taking advantage of theoriginal camera obscura concept. - When you shoot a photograph without a lens, the focusin the image is variable. It tends to be more in focus and sharper in the center, with focus droppingoff towards the corners of the print. - In 1891, an incident arose in the hanging of theexhibition of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, which was to include an Impressionist photograph by George Davison. Itsrefusal eventually led to the defection of several like-minded individuals from the group, who formed their own association, theLinked Ring. -As Emerson's justification of selective focus, that is, to match the way the eyes see, faded from currency, the writings of Henry Peach Robinson, whcih Emerson strongly disliked, were devoured by the new generation -to Emerson's annoyance, another British photographer, George Davison, expanded upon his theories and promoted an imprecise notion of impressionistic photography -whereas Impressionism, the French art movement of the 1870s-80s, aimed at capturing a mpmentary visual imprint of a scene, impressionistic photography attempted to render a personal response to a subject -soon the words "poetic," "art," "naturalistic," and "impressionistic" all came to signal Pictiorialist photography, exemplified by Davison's The Onion Field -unlike Emerson's work, where the main subject was in focus, the entire surface of The Onion Field is indistinct (printed as a gravure, a technique favored by Pictorialists because it suppressed detail); Davison thus shifted the foundations of art photography from science to art -paradoxically, the anti-industrial, hand-crafted "fuzzygraph," as Pictorial photographs were sometimes mockingly called, helped foster a new segment of photographic manufacturing -commercial producers rushed to make soft-focus lenses and textured photographic papers for amateur use -the British association called the Linked Ring, formed in 1892 in opposition to the Photographic Society of Great Britain, whose 15 founders included Henry Peach Robinson and George Davison -Irish critic, playwright, and social activist George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) took more than 10000 pictures; his self-portraits, pictures of friends, and landscapes typify the varied output of amateurs -Shaw also wrote extensively about photography, defending it as an art and advocating that photographers stick to the inherent qualities of the camera, which he considered to be sharp focus and no handworking of the negative and the print -of George Davison, Shaw wrote: "if I saw the edges of a house blur as they blur in Mr. Davison's pictures, I should conclude that I was going faint, and probably do it too" -Davison's notion of personal impressionist

Alvin Langdon Coburn

octopus -Alfred Stieglitz was the most prominent spokesperson for these photographersin America, and in 1902 he and several like-minded associates in the New York Camera Club—including Gertrude Käsebier, Alvin LangdonCoburn, and Frank Eugene -broke away from the club to form what they dubbed the Photo-Secession. -An eighth-birthday gift of a Kodak camera launched Alvin LangdonCoburn's photographic career. At about age sixteen, he came under the tutelage of his cousin, the publisher and photographer F.Holland Day; Coburn in turn taught Day how to print his own images and assisted him in hanging the landmarkexhibition, "The New School of American Pictorial Photography." -Coburn later worked in Gertrude Käsebier's New York studio for about ayear. In 1902 Coburn became a founding member of Alfred Steiglitz's Photo-Secession and opened a studio to display his workon Fifth Avenue in New York., - In the following year he joined the British group, the Linked Ring. He soonbecame highly influenced by the Symbolist movement and especially James McNeil Whistler's paintings. Coburn emigrated from Boston to Britain in1912 and became a naturalized citizen some twenty years later. - Despite his expatriation, he co-founded the Pictorialist Photographers of Americain 1916 and was later elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. -The Octopus, on the left, is couched in the softvelvety nap of the platinum paper, composed in the languid lines of Art Nouveau, and softly focused. This photograph ofNew York's Madison Square employs many elements of Pictorialism at its best. However, the dizzying effect of Coburn's aerial viewand his fascination with the skyscraper are distinctly and precociously modern. -The blend of Pictorialist technique and fresh vision wascharacteristic of the transitional moment when Alfred Stieglitz, Coburn, Karl Struss, and Paul Strand began to celebrate contemporary urban experience. - On the right is a Vortograph by Coburn. The intricatepatterns of light and line in this photograph, and the cascading tiers of crystalline shapes, were generated through the useof a kaleidoscopic contraption invented by the American/British photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn, a member of London's Vorticist group. -To refutethe idea that photography, in its helplessly accurate capture of scenes in the real world, was antithetical to abstraction, Coburndevised for his camera lens an attachment made up of three mirrors, clamped together in a triangle, through which hephotographed a variety of surfaces to produce the results in these images. - The poet and Vorticist Ezra Pound coined the term "vortographs"to describe Coburn's experiments. Although Pound went on to criticize these images as lesser expressions than Vorticist paintings, Coburn's workwould remain influential. -Stieglitz dissolved the Photo-Secession and Camera Work in 1917, but Käsebier, Coburn,and White continued to make photographs as they had in the early years of the century and became founders ofan organization called the Pictorial Photographers of America in 1916. --the work of such photographers as Alvin Langdon Coburn used the visual conventions of Pictorialism, including flattened space and diminished detail, to create abstract patterns on the surface of the photographic print -Coburn corresponded with American painter Arthur Wesley Dow about notan and the Japanese use of perspective -despite the surface values of Coburn's prints, neither Emerson's differential focus nor Davison's notion of personal impressionist is prominent in his work -instead, drawn to spiritualism and religious symbolism, Coburn sought out patterns in nature as clues to a great spiritual immanence -it is ironic that Coburn, who spurned modernity later in his life and became a druid, also made the first completely abstract photograph -through the influence of the poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972), Coburn briefly took up Vorticism, a short-lived English art movement named by Pound in 1913, and promoted by the painter Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) -the movement's magazine, Blast, explained that Vorticism would integrate the dynamic movement of Futurism with the static geometric analysis of Cubism -the movement hoped to blast away the remnants of the past -Coburn experimented with abstraction, building a Vortescope, a combination of mirrors that produced an image like a kaleidoscope, and photographing the result (in some, Coburn used multiple exposures to increase the abstract effect) -Coburn's interest in total abstraction lasted only about a month; he never embraced the notion that radical changes in the visual arts could promote change on the social front, an assumption that would guide experimental photography in the 1920s

291

the art gallery founded by Alfred Stieglitz which exhibited the avant-garde art. He was promoting photography as an art form -also called the "Little Galleries" -On the evening of November 5th 1905 the little galleries of the photo secession openedan exhibition it amounted to a miniature but superb Salon of American photography and it made photographic history. But thefirst time Americans had a continuing opportunity to see masterpieces of Photography from both Europe and America. -Steichen then became the finder of art in Europe while Steiglitz handled the 291 gallery, avoiding his wife -Stieglitz prided himself on not using Emmys money for 291or camera work covering expenses with his own income from his father, subscriptions and print sales -For five years from 1902 to 1907 stiglitz rarely usedhis camera promoting other photographers at the sacrifice of his own work -Now a shipboard experience with stir him to create oneof his most memorable images. In June 1907 was sailing with his wife and daughter and photographed steerage; "saw shapes related to one another a picture ofshapes and underlying it a new vision that held me."; picture based on related shapes and deepest human feeling. -Stieglitz might not get it but he was always drawnto the new and ready to promote it especially if it was likely to shock a brief while public. -exhibited Rodin's drawings; one of the firstintroductions of Modern Art to America; The show opened January 2nd 1908 and caused a sensation; critics had a field day with it as most was derision for the drawings -It was in avery scandalous exhibition in the minds of many New Yorkers at the time not only because the drawing seem tobe very unfinished but also because they were clearly studies of nude models who had been a prancing before rodin in his Studio -Among the visitors to the show was the Young art student Georgia O'Keeffe.Who would one day change the course of stieglitz life -Steichen wrote about another exhibition (drawings by Matisse) which were extremely abstract; anarchist of art; eventually also Cezanne's work -certainkind of Social Circle developed around 291; therewasn't any other place where people would not be doing just academic things. -collected around him groups of peoplewho were among the most creative intelligent people of their time and not just artists not just photographers, But critics poets musicians. brought all these people together and said on the extraordinary interchange of ideas that occurredin these spaces. -Steichen then became the finder of art in Europe while Steiglitz handled the 291 gallery, avoiding his wife -WWI occurred: Steichen enlisted and was changed forever by the suffering he saw; Stieglitz and 291 were devastated bythe war; as a pacifist and with happy memories of his youth in Germany he could not joinin the war time fever And the anti-german Hysteria. This refusal made him and 291 suspect in themilitant war-time atmosphere. -decided to not continue 291 and Camera Work. Badly hit by war -the Photo-Secession. The group held exhibitionsof their work in a space called the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession (known familiarly as "291" for its addresson Fifth Avenue) and they published a quarterly magazine edited by Stieglitz entitled Camera Work.

George Eastman - roll film

- In 1888, George Eastman's photographic firm in Rochester, NY introducedthe first commercially viable transparent celluloid roll film, using the new gelatin silver emulsion. -Eastman invented the name 'Kodak' purely as a memorable marketing term -one of the earliest examples of this practice - forhis new system. -A relatively simple camera was pre-loaded with film for 100 negatives, which the purchaser shot until itwas finished. -You then mailed the whole camera back to Rochester, where the film was developed, and all the worthwhilenegatives printed in the Eastman Kodak darkrooms. For $2.00, they processed, printed, and reloaded the camera, returning it by mailto the owner. - It was these three steps - the invention and evolution of Maddox's silver gelatin emulsion, the abilityto sensitize it to low levels of light, and the ability to coat it on a flexible transparent base -which launched photography as an art form that anyone could take up and which could be easily made, reproduced, anddistributed widely. -manufacturers slimmed down cameras and experimented with roll film to create compact, lightweight hand-held devices such as Hawkeye, P. D. Q. (Photography Done Quickly), and, of course, Kodak, to be used by professionals and amateurs alike -the Kodak was made possible by technical advances inthe development of roll film and small, fixed-focus cameras -as the invention of dry plates, roll film, and hand cameras encouraged a greater number of hobbyists, it also allowed them to go their own way

Camera Work

-CAMERA WORK (started in 1902 with pictorial photography, advanced photography of the time, and ended in 1917 with Paul Strand, advanced photography of the time) -published a quarterly magazine edited by Stieglitz entitled Camera Work. This sumptuous publication—illustrated with handsomely printed photogravures on Japanese ricepaper hand-tipped to the pages—became a clarion call to photographers throughout the country, such as Clarence White -Stieglitz always knew the power of publication. Camera Work was a major weapon in his battle forphotography; one of the most beautifulmagazines of any sort ever produced the reproductions the photograph hand pasted onto the pages everything was absolutelythe highest standard; the magazine had a tremendous impact the issue would have been passed fromhand to hand as a treasured document on this was something that has been tremendous importance to many many photographersin shaping their work. -Camera work reflected the change in stieglitz Vision it movedaway from photography to publish more and more avant-garde art; resentful photographers cancel their subscription. -Camera work was well known for publishing distinguished writing onthe Arts. But these new modern arts demanded writing as radical as its images. -first cover designed by Steichen -modeled on fine-art publications, this was printed in decorative typography on deluxe paper; abundant samples of the new photography were mostly reproduced in gravure -other journals advocating art photography included such lavishly illustrated German magazines such as Photographic Review and Art in Photography -Stieglitz enlarged the scope of Camera Work to encompass the other arts and art theory -in 1912, for example, he published selections from Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) -the covers for Camera Work were designed by Edward Steichen (1879-1973), a painter-photographer who was also a founding member of the Photo-Secession -outside Camera Work, Stieglitz continued to promote photography in popular magazines and journals -in 1917, when Camera Work devoted its last issue to Strand's photography, Stieglitz wrote that Strand's works were "brutally direct," and "devoid of trickery and any 'ism'" -"these photographs are the direct expression of today" -Strand credited Stieglitz for creating, through Camera Work, a true American art

Peter Henry Emerson

-Peter Henry Emerson was a naturalist, a skillful billiards player,founder of a rowing club, and was active in The Royal Meteorological Society. - Emerson was the classical Victorian gentleman; he could master andexcel in any field of study or sport he selected. - He purchased his first camera in 1882, as a toolto use on outings while birding. He studied photography as a science in conjunction with physics and chemistry at CambridgeUniversity. - Emerson pursued photography with the same verve he approached allinterests, but one must keep in mind that nature was the core of his passion. - In 1886 Emerson spoke to the Camera Club of London,a group he had helped found for amateur photographers. The lecture was entitled "Photography: A Pictorial Art." -It was a theory of art based on science. Heexplained that a natural photograph should echo what the human eye sees in nature. He emphasized this concept in hispractice of photography, calling it 'naturalistic focus'. -In his lecture, Emerson rated photography as an art secondto painting only because photography at the time could not provide color or a true tonal relationship. - In 1886 Emerson published his first photo-book, "Life and Landscapeon the Norfolk Broads." It consisted of 40 platinum prints of photographs exposed in the marshlands, such as this one,Polling the Marsh Hay. His subjects were fishermen, reed gatherers and farmers, showing the simple beauty of their everyday livesas they integrated with nature. Emerson shared his excursions on the waterways of the Norfolk Broads with an artist friend,T.F. Goodall. -Together they wrote a narrative text to complement the photographs. - In 1889 Emerson published a textbook of photography titled "NaturalisticPhotography for Students of the Art." It was his attempt to explain his philosophy of art and how it relatedto nature including the aesthetics and techniques of photography, and his view of art history. -The book was referred to as "the bombshell dropped atthe tea party" because of the controversy it generated. It fired the focus debate: Was completely sharp faithful to nature?How soft was soft enough? Did the human eye see the subject sharp with the edges falling off to soft?What was natural, or what tones were possible? -Part of Emerson's argument relied on his belief that thephotographer could differentially influence the chemistry of a print while it was in the developer bath, bringing out darker orlighter tonalities. -In part on the strength of this argument, the lastchapter of his book declared "Photography: An Art." -Shortly after his book was published, German chemists proved that such controlof the chemistry was, in fact, impossible. - Shortly thereafter, in January 1891, Emerson wrote a pamphlet declaring "The Death ofNaturalistic Photography." -Regardless of Emerson's own feelings about the aesthetic possibilities ofthe medium, he had served as a catalyst on the photographic scene, inspiring many others to take up the cameraas a creative tool. -We see here a brief description of Emerson's concept of'naturalistic focus'. Not everything in the visual field is in focus, so the Pictorialists emphasized the difference between areas ofcentral focus and surrounding areas of fuzzier peripheral vision. -Emerson acquired his first camera during his medical training at Cambridge University. By 1885, with the Assurance of a private income, he chose to practice photography rather than medicine. -He insisted that, in the modern world, science was the only authentic basis for art and photography. -Just as the French novelist Emile Zola had adopted the scientific method and Outlook of the doctor Claude Bernard, so Emerson seized on the ideas of German scientist Hermann Von Helmholtz, whose studies of the human eye's range of focus he took as instructive for photography -Both Zola and Emerson attempt to align art with The Cutting Edge of Science, and to make it part of the modern world -in 1880, Zola famously proclaimed that "the physical Man is dead; with physiological man our position changes. " -Speaking to the Camera Club of London in March 1886, Emerson likewise declared that "the days of metaphysics are over " -in his most important theoretical work, Naturalistic Photography (1889), Emerson expounded his theory of photography -he rejected the idea of art as primarily a vehicle for personal and emotional expression -While maintaining that the artist was a person of special character and ability, he derided works of the imagination as untrue -His own notion of naturalism was based on contemporary science, not art theory, notably on Helmholtz's idea that "perfect artistic painting is only reached when you've succeeded in imitating the action of light upon the eye" -At a time when technical improvements enabled photographers to make sharper pictures, Emerson denied that the camera could make art by merely transcribing physical reality -Instead, he argued that the artist should translate exactly how the eye sees, concluding that the photographer should focus on the main subject of a scene, allowing the periphery and the distance to become indistinct -Called differential or selective focus, this approach varied from William Newton's earlier idea of making the entire image slightly out-of-focus -Much of Emerson's photography was done on the Norfolk Broads, a marshy area in eastern England where industrialization had not penetrated to the degree that it had in other parts of the country -There Emerson found rural life and traditional occupations; he ignored the beginnings of tourism, which was bringing people to the shallow, navigable waters of the Broads -His first major work, Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads (1886), was a folio of forty mounted platinum prints (called platinotypes in the period) with accompanying text by Emerson and his friend and traveling companion the artist Thomas Frederick Goodall -Emerson's pictures emphasized the unchanged relationship of people to the land -Emerson was known as an eccentric art celebrity, whose ideas and work were controversial, like those of American painter James McNeill Whistler -when he rejected his own theory in a black-bordered pamphlet titled The Death of Naturalistic Photography (1890), the public was skeptical -yet Emerson maintained that his early theory was based on a belief that tones in a photograph could be manipulated to a greater degree than chemists now proved possible -many people today find Emerson's rationale insufficient -having promoted art photography as a cutting-edge application of recent science, he seems to have abruptly cast it off because he saw it as limiting the individuality of the artist -although Emerson wrote that he thought much amateur and art photography pretentious, many practitioners ignored his insults, and based their ideas of art photography on his photographs, with their subdued middle-gray tones, soft focus, and peaceful, agrarian subjects -amateurs of art photography creatively misunderstood Emerson's writings to authorize moving away from faithful depiction toward more evocative and expressive photographs -the resulting international photographic movement known as Pictorialism gathered strength in the mid-1880s, peaked in the 1900s, and persisted into the 1920s -Pictorialists adopted Emerson's disgust with industrialization and mass-produced goods, as well as his belief in photography as a fully fledged modern art form -they embraced his choice of subjects, but jettisoned allegiance to recent science -in Pictorialist hands, Emerson's selective or differential focus became a dislike of the distracting details associated with vulgar commercial photography

Heinrich Kühn

-The Viennese also had the benefit of an association devotedto the development of art photography beginning in 1897. Known as Das Kleeblatt, or the Trifolium, Hugo Henneberg, Heinrich Kühnand Hans Watzek worked to present an alternative to the purely technical view of photography in Austria. - Like the Englishphotographers and the French Pictorialists, these photographers were members of an important international community of artists that envisioned and actualizeda completely new understanding of photography's strengths. -another proponent of so-called gum printing was German photographer Heinrich Kuhn, whose painterly photographs using the technique vexed viewers at the first amateur photographic exhibition held in Berlin in 1896 -like Emerson, Kuhn was a scientist and a doctor, but his training did not lead him to a scientifically based theory of art -he also disliked the new snapshot photography, claiming that humans do not see the way that "quick shots" look -however spontaneous his photographs may appear, Kuhn planned them by selecting a location and sketching possible scenes, including poses for his subjects, whose apparel he frequently selected (On the Hillside) -with photographers Hans Warzek and Hugo Henneberg, Kuhn exhibited under the name Das Kleeblatt (The Trifolium, or Cloverland, referring both to the three-lobed leaf and to the three-part window of Gothic architecture) -Kuhn moved easily between groups of European photographers and painters -among the first associations formed solely to advance art photography was the Wiener Kamera Klub (Vienna Camera Club), which celebrated its founding in 1891 with a show of 600 art photographs -its members included Warzek, Henneberg, and Kuhn -art photography organizations were typically international in membership: Watzek, Henneberg, and Kuhn, for example, were also members of the Photo-Club de Paris, which broke from the more conservative Societe Francaise de Photographie in 1894 -Watzek, Henneberg, and Kuhn were also elected to the British association called the Linked Ring, formed in 1892 in opposition to the Photographic Society of Great Britain, whose 15 founders included Henry Peach Robinson and George Davison

Frederick Evans

-The controversy between the two aesthetic camps—those who insisted that photographs should not be altered at anystage of development and those who believed that such manual intervention was necessary to make clear the artist's role—was continuedin lively debates that clarified the aesthetic role of photography in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century art. -We see here an image by Frederick Evans, who favoredthe sharp-focus approach. In his photograph of the Sea of Steps in Wells Cathedral, he is not using manipulation ofthe print, and the aesthetic effect of the photograph comes from its framing of the subject, the well-trodden steps inthis medieval cathedral. -another Linked Ring member, British photographer Frederick H. Evans (1853-1943), rejected the special lenses and negative manipulations used by many Pictorialists, in favor of what he called "pure photography" -he called for plain prints from plain negatives -writing about his work, mostly platinum prints, Evans explained that he found architecture best suited in art photography -his goal was to record an emotional and aesthetic response to space, light, and shadow, especially in the interiors of historic English churches, cathedrals, and French chateaux (Steps to Chapter House: A Sea of Steps)

The Armory Show of 1913

-The first real competition to the Gallery 291 came in1913 with a great Armory show in New York City bringing together from here and abroad the greatest collection ofModern Art ever seen in this country -at first stieglitz was very supportive; In many ways the Armory show was really a Vindicationof all that stiglitz have been working for for the last five years after all he was a major exhibitionof mainly modern European art in this country and stieglitz prior to that time had been the only person whohad shown any interest on a really serious level of showing that work to the American public. -The greatestnumber of workswere impressionist post-impressionist fauvist and Cubist. 210 American Works were shown. But it was theEuropean art that caused a sensation. -Papers had cartoons and caricatures calling these artists fakes, insane, or anarchists -Duchamp's picture nude descending a staircase became afavorite Target. -The negative publicity brought enormous crowds; more than 87,000 people in New York alone. -Patrons were paying large prices for the same European paintingsthat stieglitz had returned to unsold to Paris. He said, "Work is an art until enough noise is made aboutit until someone Rich comes along and buys it." -After the great success of the Armory show a numberof dealers began showing more and more modest work and stieglitz felt that he had accomplished what he had setout to do. The Armory show was not only a watershed for Modern Art in the US it wasa turning point for Alfred stieglitz and American art - the European moderns had achieved success but only a fraction ofthe works sold were American America's avant-garde was still unappreciated and undervalued; the Rebel needed a new cause and itwas waiting for him - Alfred stieglitz would lead the campaign for American art "not in the name of chauvinism because one's own children must come first." -It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America -The show became an important event in the history of American art, introducing astonished Americans, who were accustomed to realistic art, to the experimental styles of the European avant garde, including Fauvism, Cubism, and Futurism. The show served as a catalyst for American artists, who became more independent and created their own "artistic language."

Das Kleeblatt (Austria)

-The secessionist activities initiated by the members of the LinkedRing echoed throughout the photography world. -The Viennese also had the benefit of an association devotedto the development of art photography beginning in 1897. Known as Das Kleeblatt, or the Trifolium, Hugo Henneberg, Heinrich Kühnand Hans Watzek worked to present an alternative to the purely technical view of photography in Austria. - Like the Englishphotographers and the French Pictorialists, these photographers were members of an important international community of artists that envisioned and actualizeda completely new understanding of photography's strengths. -Such groups, which included Stieglitz's Photo-Secession in New York (founded in 1902), performedan invaluable role in communicating the aims of art photographers by organizing international exhibitions of Pictorial photography and by publishingdebates about related issues in the pages of their journals.

Photo-Club de Paris (France)

-The secessionist activities initiated by the members of the LinkedRing echoed throughout the photography world. In France, the Photo-Club de Paris was formed in 1894 with Robert Demachy andÉmile Constant Puyo as its founders. -these photographers were members of an important international community of artists that envisioned and actualizeda completely new understanding of photography's strengths. -before the founding of the Photo-Secession, F. Holland Day proposed an "American Association of Pictorial Photographers," to be based in Boston -in 1900, he organized an exhibition of about 300 images, called the "new School of American Photography," which was sponsored by the Royal Photographic Society and shown in London, and the next year by the Photo-Club de Paris in the French capital -art photography organizations were typically international in membership: Watzek, Henneberg, and Kuhn, for example, were also members of the Photo-Club de Paris, which broke from the more conservative Societe Francaise de Photographie in 1894, as well as the Vienna Secession -two of the Photo-Club's founders, Robert Demachy and Charles Emile Joachim Constant Puyo, had an international audience for their writings about the gum-bichromate process (Puyo, Robert Demachy, and Paul de Singly with Model)

Robert Demachy

French pictorialist. Enthusiast of gum printing. -Robert Demachy, a French doctor with an avidhobby in aesthetic photography, brought the gum-bichromate process to the attention of his Pictorialist colleagues, and it became quite popular aroundthe turn of the century. -Demachy's images of ballerinas read like monochromatic versions of paintings by Degas. --French photographer Robert Demachy promoted the technique in influential articles and worked extensively in it himself (Struggle from Camera Work) -The secessionist activities initiated by the members of the LinkedRing echoed throughout the photography world. In France, the Photo-Club de Paris was formed in 1894 with Robert Demachy andÉmile Constant Puyo as its founders. -two of the Photo-Club's founders, Robert Demachy and Charles Emile Joachim Constant Puyo, had an international audience for their writings about the gum-bichromate process (Puyo, Robert Demachy, and Paul de Singly with Model) -Steichen organized the first exhibition at 291, as the gallery became known, followed by a show of French photography selected by Demachy -Pictorialism's emphasis on nature and the natural gave rise to studies of the male and female nude, created by White, Steichen, Demachy, Puyo, and Anne Brigman (1869-1950), among others -since boys customarily swam nude, the beach was a likely place to photograph them

Pictorialism

A photographic style and philosophy that sought to make the aesthetic photograph more like the unique handmade quality of painting, to be regarded as a persuasive expression of personal temperament and choice. -Inventive with printing because wanted aesthetic effects -2nd wave of art photography that occurred from the 1880s to the beginning of the 20th century and was more broadly popular than the first -a kind of photography that rejected industrialization for evocative, often hand-painted photographic images -although Emerson wrote that he thought much amateur and art photography pretentious, many practitioners ignored his insults, and based their ideas of art photography on his photographs, with their subdued middle-gray tones, soft focus, and peaceful, agrarian subjects -amateurs of art photography creatively misunderstood Emerson's writings to authorize moving away from faithful depiction toward more evocative and expressive photographs -the resulting international photographic movement known as Pictorialism gathered strength in the mid-1880s, peaked in the 1900s, and persisted into the 1920s -Pictorialists adopted Emerson's disgust with industrialization and mass-produced goods, as well as his belief in photography as a fully fledged modern art form -they embraced his choice of subjects, but jettisoned allegiance to recent science -in Pictorialist hands, Emerson's selective or differential focus became a dislike of the distracting details associated with vulgar commercial photography -Pictorialist photographers favored scenes infused with fog and shadows -in contrast to their simple subjects, they strove for tonal complexity, choosing techniques such as platinum printing, which yielded abundant soft, middle-gray tones -they favored procedures that allowed for handworking of both negatives and prints -their results were in obvious visual opposition to the sharp black and white contrasts of the commercial print -Pictorialist photographs were frequently printed on textured paper, unlike the glossy surface of commercial photographs, so that they resembled watercolors, evoking the earlier Victorian photographs of David Octavius Hill and Julia Margaret Cameron, which they admired and exhibited -Pictorialists valued their symbolic control over the growing photography industry, and they cultivated a sense of superiority over the snapshooters, who did not even develop their own film -one Pictorialist asserted that "the photographer is not helpless before the mechanical means at his disposal. He can master them as he may choose, and he can make the lens see with his eyes, can make the plate receive his impressionis" -Pictorialist writing encouraged a self-image of cultural heroism, striking back at the worst of the modern world -in his influential 1901 book Photography as a Fine Art, critic Charles H. Caffeine described the "men and women who are seeking to lift photography to the level of one of the Fine Arts" as "advanced photographers," and Alfred Stieglitz, who would later emerge as a foremost art photographer, as an "artist, prophet, pathfinder" -As Emerson's justification of selective focus, that is, to match the way the eyes see, faded from currency, the writings of Henry Peach Robinson, whcih Emerson strongly disliked, were devoured by the new generation -Robinson, best known for his combination prints, was probably even more responsible for popularizing the word "pictorial" than Emerson -his book Pictorial Effect in Photography, first published in 1868, was still read at the turn of the century -a few photographers made elaborate tableaux vivants of Old Master paintings, extending Robinson's own practice -serious amateurs, as they were called, sometimes blended contemporary styles and themes in their work -Jane Reece, a commercial portraitist in Dayton, Ohio, combined turn of the century interest in Japanese prints, with their flattened space, and the principle that one should beautify the experience of everyday life, an idea promoted by the Arts and Crafts movement and the followers of Art Nouveau (The Poinsettia Girl) -to Emerson's annoyance, another British photographer, George Davison, expanded upon his theories and promoted an imprecise notion of impressionistic photography -whereas Impressionism, the French art movement of the 1870s-80s, aimed at capturing a mpmentary visual imprint of a scene, impressionistic photography attempted to render a personal response to a subject -soon the words "poetic," "art," "naturalistic," and "impressionistic" all came to signal Pictiorialist photography, exemplified by Davison's The Onion Field -unlike Emerson's work, where the main subject was in focus, the entire surface of The Onion Field is indistinct (printed as a gravure, a technique favored by Pictorialists because it suppressed detail); Davison thus shifted the foundations of art photography from science to art -paradoxically, the anti-industrial, hand-crafted "fuzzygraph," as Pictorial photographs were sometimes mockingly called, helped foster a new segment of photographic manufacturing -commercial producers rushed to make soft-focus lenses and textured photographic papers for amateur use -Emerson's renunciation of naturalistic photography did not stop him making pictures of criticizing the growing popularity of the gum-bichromate process, which made it possible to add pigment and texture to a print -French photographer Robert Demachy promoted the technique in influential articles and worked extensively in it himself (Struggle from Camera Work) -another proponent of so-called gum printing was German photographer Heinrich Kuhn, whose painterly photographs using the technique vexed viewers at the first amateur photographic exhibition held in Berlin in 1896 -like Emerson, Kuhn was a scientist and a doctor, but his training did not lead him to a scientifically based theory of art -he also disliked the new snapshot photography, claiming that humans do not see the way that "quick shots" look -however spontaneous his photographs may appear, Kuhn planned them by selecting a location and sketching possible scenes, including poses for his subjects, whose apparel he frequently selected (On the Hillside) -with photographers Hans Warzek and Hugo Henneberg, Kuhn exhibited under the name Das Kleeblatt (The Trifolium, or Cloverland, referring both to the three-lobed leaf and to the three-part window of Gothic architecture) -Kuhn moved easily between groups of European photographers and painters -American-born Frank Eugene was equally international; he sometimes combined photography and printmaking (Adam and Eve) and favored dreamy views of leisured women enjoying nature, a popular theme in Pictorialist photography -in 1906, he moved to Germany, where he made both paintings and photographs -like Art Nouveau artists in Europe and America, the Pictorialists raised aesthetic experience to a paramount life goal -from their point of view, what was needed was aesthetic reform of the whole society, and they hoped to start the process by banishing the harsh and unsightly realm of industry from their work -Pictorialism created international networks of artists and amateurs -the movement was strong in Russia, where Sergei Loboyikov adopted it to render traditional peasant life, not as ethnographic data, but as an expression of nostalgia for nature and simpler times (The Widow's Pillow) -like other Pictorialists, Lobovikov worked with gum bichromate and made platinum prints; he also favored the bromoil process, which allowed him to apply color to the print with a brush -in Japan, the Pictorialist look dominated portraits, street scenes, landscapes, and ethnographic photography until the mid-1930s, when it finally gave way to the pressures of Modernism and abstraction --Pictorialism's emphasis on nature and the natural gave rise to studies of the male and female nude, created by White, Steichen, Demachy, Puyo, and Anne Brigman (1869-1950), among others -after the horrors of World War I, the ideology of Pictorialism was in full retreat -nevertheless, Pictorial-style photographs continued to be made, especially in advertising and amateur work, despite the challenges of Russian Constructivism, which stressed design as a way for artists to participate in changing society for the better, and European Dadaism, which questioned the plausibility of beauty and purity after the horrors of trench warfare -advocates of art photography have viewed Pictorialism as avant-grade on account of its tendency to stress abstract patterns, which emerged as a key visual characteristic of art photography in the 1920s

Anne Brigman

Anne Brigman was one of two original California members ofthe art photography group the Photo-Secession, founded by Alfred Stieglitz, and she was the only Western photographer to be madea Fellow of the group. -Trained as a painter, she turned to photography in 1902. "[S]lim, hearty, unaffected women ofearly maturity living a hardy out-of-door life in high boots and jeans, toughened to wind and sun" were Brigman's favoredsubjects, and she photographed them nude in the landscape of the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California. - Three issues of Camera Work featured her photographs, and theBritish Linked Ring society of photographers elected her a member. - Around 1929 she moved to Long Beach in Southern California,where she continued to photograph, focusing on a series of sand erosions. A year before her death in Eagle Rock,near Los Angeles, in 1950, she published a book of her poems and photographs titled Songs of a Pagan. -Pictorialism's emphasis on nature and the natural gave rise to studies of the male and female nude, created by White, Steichen, Demachy, Puyo, and Anne Brigman (1869-1950), among others -since boys customarily swam nude, the beach was a likely place to photograph them -the longstanding association of women with both nature and domesticity made feminine subjects a favorite in Pictorialist practice -women, too, worked with these themes; in particular, Californian photographer Anne Brigman portrayed women as spirits or souls of trees, rocks, water, and even photography (The Heart of the Storm) -portraiture was thought to be done better by women, who were considered to possess a more intuitive grasp of the sitter's personality and a wider range of emotional response than men -with the increased acceptance of women's aptitude, their work was shown in large exhibits and magazines

Naturalistic focus

Emerson's idea that art photography should be based in science; using the way that humans naturally perceive the world as a way to explore and represent the world in photographs. Not everything in the visual field is in focus, so the Pictorialists emphasized the difference between areas of central focus and surrounding areas of fuzzier peripheral vision. Looks like human view (center in focus with softer peripheral/outside vision) -new lenses were ground to purposely blur images around the edges -originally, photography was appreciated for its all around sharp detail, but he's bucking the trend Also title of the book by Emerson (Naturalistic Photography (1889)) -he rejected the idea of art as primarily a vehicle for personal and emotional expression -While maintaining that the artist was a person of special character and ability, he derided works of the imagination as untrue -His own notion of naturalism was based on contemporary science, not art theory, notably on Helmholtz's idea that "perfect artistic painting is only reached when you've succeeded in imitating the action of light upon the eye" -At a time when technical improvements enabled photographers to make sharper pictures, Emerson denied that the camera could make art by merely transcribing physical reality -Instead, he argued that the artist should translate exactly how the eye sees, concluding that the photographer should focus on the main subject of a scene, allowing the periphery and the distance to become indistinct -Called differential or selective focus, this approach varied from William Newton's earlier idea of making the entire image slightly out-of-focus

Halftone reproduction

Halftone converts the different tones of a photograph into dots of varying size. The eye has a limited resolving power and, at a distance, is tricked into seeing these dots as continuous tone - While there were earlier mechanical printing processes that could imitatethe tone and subtle details of a photograph, most notably the Woodburytype, expense and practicality prohibited their being used inmass commercial printing that used relief printing. - As we have seen, through much of the 19th century,most newspaper pictures were woodcuts or wood-engravings made from hand-carved blocks of wood that, while they were often copied fromphotographs, they more resemble hand drawn sketches. - Commercial printers wanted a practical way to realistically reproduce photographsonto the printed page, but most common mechanical printing processes can only print areas of ink or leave blank areason the paper and not a photographic range of tones; only black (or colored) ink, or nothing. -The half-tone process overcame these limitations and became the staple of the book, newspaper and other periodical industry. -The first truly successful commercial halftone method was patented bythe printer Frederic Ives of Philadelphia in 1881. -In 1882, the German Georg Meisenbach patented a halftone process in England. -His invention used single lined screens which were turned during exposure to produce cross-lined effects. He was the first toachieve any commercial success with relief halftones. - These early applications focused on reproducing mostly artistic images, buteventually means of transferring the information from a photographic negative to a printing plate, using one of a number ofscreens, eventually enabled mass-circulation newspapers and magazines to reproduce photographic images directly. -The use of halftone blocks in popular journals became regularduring the early 1890s. -Subsequent developments in printing technology enabled large, high quality print runs by the mid-1920s. -Halftone printing allowed images and text to be printed together on high speed presses, which, in turn, Foster the production of inexpensive daily Illustrated newspapers, some of whose income came from photographically Illustrated advertisements. -emergence of viable half-tone reproduction (1890s); now technically feasible for photos to appear on front page of newspaper; take image and submit to several different screens (grid) and decide how to populate with ink; can reproduce half tones in printers ink

Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art (1889)

In 1889 Emerson published a textbook of photography titled "NaturalisticPhotography for Students of the Art." It was his attempt to explain his philosophy of art and how it relatedto nature including the aesthetics and techniques of photography, and his view of art history. -The book was referred to as "the bombshell dropped atthe tea party" because of the controversy it generated. It fired the focus debate: Was completely sharp faithful to nature?How soft was soft enough? Did the human eye see the subject sharp with the edges falling off to soft?What was natural, or what tones were possible? -Part of Emerson's argument relied on his belief that thephotographer could differentially influence the chemistry of a print while it was in the developer bath, bringing out darker orlighter tonalities. -In part on the strength of this argument, the lastchapter of his book declared "Photography: An Art." -Shortly after his book was published, German chemists proved that such controlof the chemistry was, in fact, impossible. - Shortly thereafter, in January 1891, Emerson wrote a pamphlet declaring "The Death ofNaturalistic Photography." -Regardless of Emerson's own feelings about the aesthetic possibilities ofthe medium, he had served as a catalyst on the photographic scene, inspiring many others to take up the cameraas a creative tool.

Platinum Print

Platinum printing became very popular among these second wave art photographers. - The emulsion of this paper uses platinum salts, rather than silver. -Platinum salts have the disadvantage of being significantly less reactive to light; so much so, that it requires contact printing with the negative directly on top of the paper— passing the light through an enlarger diffuses it, thereby making enlargements impractical on platinum paper. - In exchange for this limitation, range of grey tones is much wider and less contrasty than the gelatin silver - Seeing a platinum print in person, it offers an incredibly lush surface, with a softer effect than one sees with gelatin silver. -tonal complexity, choosing techniques such as platinum printing, which yielded abundant soft, middle-gray tones -by 1915 there was no more platinum paper as WWI left not enough supplies; platinum was abandoned by straight photographers who want more snappy and contrasty images

Gum bichromate

This process involvesmixing a watercolor pigment with gum arabic and once this is well mixed, adding the potassium dichromate to the mixture,again mixing thoroughly. This is brushed onto watercolor paper fairly quickly since it is quick drying. -After it hascompletely dried, the paper is sandwiched with glass, negative, paper and support forming the layers and held together with elasticbands. -Then the print is exposed to sunlight for around eight minutes before being washed in a warm water bath.The water will remove the unexposed highlights and the softer midtones. -While the print is in the water bath, apaintbrush can be used to gently remove part of the emulsion, leaving painterly 'brush strokes' on the surface of theprint, heightening its resemblance to painting, as you see in this example. -Robert Demachy, a French doctor with an avidhobby in aesthetic photography, brought this process to the attention of his Pictorialist colleagues, and it became quite popular aroundthe turn of the century. -Demachy's images of ballerinas read like monochromatic versions of paintings by Degas. -based on light sensitivity of chromium -Mungo Ponton first to do experiments with the light sensitivity of this compound -Talbot also experimented with chromium salts -discovers if mix with colloids, gelatin, or gum, they harden when exposed to sunlight -based on Talbot's experiments, see take colloids like gum arabic, add pigment, and then sensitize with chromium salts; now have medium can brush onto paper -expose it to light under a negative and put in warm water, areas thatare struck by light will harden , and that's where dark pigment will be -areas not struck by light will dissolve, leaving white of paper -darker the picture, the thicker the deposit of gum -whiter the picture, the more see the actual paper -as result, image itself has slight relief -The gum process became very popular among Pictorialist photographers likeGeorge Davison. It's often layered with other printing techniques, and combined with other things as here with pinhole photography. -handwork -Eastlake said couldn't see hand of artist, so not art, but now see the hand of the artist -some sprinkle sawdust and move around to remove some emulsion and make soft focus -emulates established form of Impressionism which was only acceptable by the 1890s/1900s after starting in 1860s/70s

Emerson's Essay: Hints on Art

This section is from the "Naturalistic Photography For Students Of The Art" book, by P. H. Emerson. He was upper class, and the essay reeks of elitism -fine art and taste -page 101: "Vulgarity astonishes, produces a sensation; refinement attracts by delicacy and charm and must be sought out. Vulgarity obtrudes itself, refinement is unobtrusive and requires the introduction of education" -"Good art only appeals to highly cultivated..." -class organized; refinement -have to be cultivated to get unobtrusive beauty -didn't like how photography was seen as "science art" since, to him, it was just art -page 103: "Science destroys..."; doesn't like objective truth of science, but wants subjective aesthetic with "poetic fact" -relationship between photography and landscape? what does photography capture? -nature is common theme; brings about this aesthetic through photographing Norfolk Broads -Batchen had mentioned the post-Enlightenment view of nature; landscape used to be at the bottom of the heap of art, but this changes with the rise of middle-class -Frederick Evans' moe straight forward view versus print processes to manipulate print

Gelatin Silver (dry plate)

When it was first introduced, this new photographic process wasoften referred to as 'dry plate', because the gelatin emulsion could be permitted to dry before exposure, and then bedeveloped at a later time. It was a much less messy, significantly more light-sensitive, and more convenient alternative to thecollodion/wet plate process, which it eventually displaced for good by the end of the century. Made it easier to freeze motion as it was much faster. It was also very contrasty -most people end up using so pictorialists began using various printing techniques so prints are made with range of things like platinum printing, gum bichromate, pigment printing -this often emphasized the concept of handwork in response to photography as art must function like a painting; hand of the artist investing self in product; significant in staking claim as photography as artistic -emulating impressionist painting with fuzzy focus

Kodak

You hit the button, we do the rest! -in 1888, the Eastman Dry Plate Company in Rochester, New York, began manufacturing the Kodak camera, the first of many cameras intended for casual use by middle-class consumers -the camera had a fixed focus-- that is, the photographer did not focus the lens, nor look through a viewfinder -the No. 1 Kodak, introduced in 1888, used what the company founder, George Eastman (1854-1932), called American film, a roll of paper coated with light-sensitive material -the camera came loaded with film containing 100 exposures -when all the pictures had been taken, the entire camera was sent back to the company in Rochester, where the prints were developed and the camera was reloaded -in other words, Kodak invented a customer-friendly photo-finishing business, as well as an uncomplicated camera -indeed, the Kodak camera was one of the first standardized consumer items mass-produced in the United States -the company slogan, "You press the button-- We do the rest," enticed people to carry a camera and make spontaneous shots in a way that had not been done before -the resulting snapshots-- the word was probably coined by John Herschel in the mid-19th century-- were 2 ½ inch diameter circular pictures -the No. 2 Kodak, which came on the market in 1889, yielded 3 ½ inch images -in 1900, the company launched the inexpensive Brownie camera, which it marketed initially to children -increasingly, cameras were available in department stores, rather than shops specializing in professional photographic needs -though snapshots were mostly personal pictures, they did have a significant public impact -snapshots not only reduced the number of professional portrait photographers; they also deepened the association between informality and photographic truth -increasingly press photographs emulated the casual look of the snapshot, and the few artists remaining at newspaper made their drawings more sketchy, as if done quickly on the spot -small cameras were not merely intended for casual shooters -manufacturers slimmed down cameras and experimented with roll film to create compact, lightweight hand-held devices such as Hawkeye, P. D. Q. (Photography Done Quickly), and, of course, Kodak, to be used by professionals and amateurs alike -the Kodak camera even made its way into Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, where it was used by the protagonist Jonathan Harker -about the same time, the camera was minaturaized -tiny cameras fitted into walking-stick handles, pistols, and jewelry were marketed as detective or secret cameras, capable of taking pictures covertly -the single-lens reflex camera (SLR), such as the Graflex was rigged with an internal mirror that allowed photographers to examine the scene before the lens -it became the standard news photographer's camera

Pinhole camera

a camera with a pinhole aperture and no lens. -The gum process became very popular among Pictorialist photographers likeGeorge Davison. It's often layered with other printing techniques, and combined with other things as here with pinhole photography. -Davisonshot this image using a camera with no lens on it, just a small pinhole aperture, taking advantage of theoriginal camera obscura concept. - When you shoot a photograph without a lens, the focusin the image is variable. It tends to be more in focus and sharper in the center, with focus droppingoff towards the corners of the print.

The Linked Ring (UK)

was the***-art photography organizations were typically international in membership:*** - In 1891, an incident arose in the hanging of theexhibition of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, which was to include an Impressionist photograph by George Davison. Itsrefusal eventually led to the defection of several like-minded individuals from the group, who formed their own association, theLinked Ring. - The group dedicated itself to the advancement of the art of photography and conducted itself much like asecret society—each member was a "link" and possessed a pseudonym to be used at the meetings, which were conducted asformal, Symbolist-inspired ceremonies. -The controversy between the two aesthetic camps—those who insisted that photographs should not be altered at anystage of development and those who believed that such manual intervention was necessary to make clear the artist's role—was continuedin lively debates that clarified the aesthetic role of photography in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century art. -Steichen was a member as well as helping cofound the Photo-Secession in the US -Anne Brigman was a member of Linked Ring and Photo-Secession -Alvin Langdon Coburn was also a member of the Linked Ring and Photo-Secession -Gertrude Kasebier was also a member of Linked Ring and Photo-Secession -Watzek, Henneberg, and Kuhn were also elected to the British association called the Linked Ring, formed in 1892 in opposition to the Photographic Society of Great Britain, whose 15 founders included Henry Peach Robinson and George Davison -the "Links" thought of themselves as members of a spiritual and aesthetic fellowship -their Photographic Salons were held yearly, exhibiting work they approved, such as that of James Craig Annan, son of photographer Thomas Annan, who had photographed the Glasgow slums before they were demolished -James Craig Annan admired the work of Hill and Adamson; as a youngster he met Hill, and in the 1890s he began making prints from Hill and Adamson negatives (Miss Janet Burnet) -having learned the gravure process in Vienna from its inventor, Karl Klic, Annan began working with his father on fine printing -the gravure process allowed photographers to translate their photographs into printer's ink by means of a copper plate that was etched by chemicals, then inked, and printed on a hand-turned printing press -American photographer Clarence H. White was also elected to the Linked Ring -White's photographs centered on familiar Pictorialist themes, rendered with delicate atmospheric effects (Morning) -through his teaching at Columbia University in New York City, White became influential in American photography -eventually, he went on to found a photography school in his own name in 1914; his students included such luminaries as Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, and Paul Outerbridge -White was hired at Columbia by the painter and theorist Arthur Wesley Dow, whose understanding of notan, a Japanese concept of graphic patterning that interpreted the relationship of positive and negative spaces, was widely experimented with by the Pictorialists -in 2002, when Dow's large photographic work came to light, its flat, geometric patterning suggested that the Pictorialists may have learned directly from his art, as well as his theory -yet another American, F. Holland Day (1864-1933), was also elected to the Linked Ring -Day explored the possibility of using the camera to depict religious scenes in his Sacred Art series (Untitled (Crucifix with Roman Soldiers)) -these photographs provoked ardent discussions about what constituted a proper photographic subject -a man of independent means, Day was the co-founder of the Boston publishing firm Copland and Day, which published the American editions of such controversial volumes as Oscar Wilde's Salome and Audrey Beardsley's The Yellow Book -his interest in the erotic human form was expressed in a number of nude and semi-nude photographs (Nude Youth with Laurel Wreath Standing against Rocks; his senseous images of the male nude blend a fondness for Classical sculpture with eroticism. Somewhat obscured by his Pictorialist technique, Day's nudes were not censored for their explicitness but applauded for their refinement) -another Linked Ring member, British photographer Frederick H. Evans (1853-1943), rejected the special lenses and negative manipulations used by many Pictorialists, in favor of what he called "pure photography" -he called for plain prints from plain negatives -writing about his work, mostly platinum prints, Evans explained that he found architecture best suited in art photography -his goal was to record an emotional and aesthetic response to space, light, and shadow, especially in the interiors of historic English churches, cathedrals, and French chateaux (Steps to Chapter House: A Sea of Steps) --adopting the word "secession" from the art movements in Vienna and Berlin that were "seceding" from conventional academic work, and in the spirit of the Linked Ring, in February 1902 Stieglitz launched the Photo-Secession

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