Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1914 (Heft 47))

stupidity, change, development of critics gives wrong proportion to criti-
cism and material criticised. Whereas the criticisms preserved and used
finally to prove historically an argument would seem better and in the mean-
time feed the hungry more amply. But I realize that you have an idea in
doing this—that it is all part of your technic and the fact that you do it and
in accordance with your ideals is the thing for which I am so thankful.
See what wide limits you reach!—you give so broadly to those who
would struggle along any way, somehow, wresting life from the wide world,
you give deep drafts, and to those whose backs are turned not content to
simply offer, you take them strongly by the shoulders and stick their noses
in the water of life till they find it good. This last, foreign as it is to my
“make up,” I admire most in you. The strength and insistence of your
belief, the unwearying, undiscouraged attempts of the real artist—the real
man. Ranking with the greatest of these who express their Life impulse
directly thro the life of men. Wonderful is this to think on!—doing
it simply because you cannot do otherwise—ah, that makes one sure of the
reality of life.
Clifford Williams

Dear Stieglitz:
The following is an incident which seems to me reflects the logical devel-
opment of “291,” and being the result of various combined energies of the
New Art expression and the higher realization of this new creative force
around you that you were the first in America to understand and feel the
necessity.
This was in Paris around 1909 on a night we offered ourselves the modest
treat of a cafe to celebrate the departure of a young Post-Impressionist
(Max Weber) for New York. (Le Pere Rousseau was also with us.) The
conversation naturally turned to the subject as to what sort of a reception
was reserved for the New Art movement in America. The prospects looked
hopeless to a degree that even just getting a hearing in the land of commerce
seemed remote, and in the stress of such discouraging outlook and despairing
conclusions we looked for consolation in our ideals as we drifted away in
the speculations as to what sort of a free centre might be created for the
younger generation (us) for the manifestation of the New Art, and when I
look back at the various ideals expressed upon the subject and condense
them all in one, “291 ” is the realization of all we longed for. On my return
to New York I felt an immediate attachment and love for the Little Galleries
as something of my higher self there already realized.
In the same way as time goes on there are other young artists creating
and seeking expression, and it is this vital force you grasp so well that makes
“291” what it is today: the advance guard of living ideas.
Vals-les-Bains, France, November, 1914.
Samuel Halpert

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