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

291
One of our daily advertising sheets recently offered a reward of $1000.00
for the discovery and apprehension of the Anarchistic bombthrowers who
have been terrorizing the community. Is it possible that the reportorial staff
of the Pulitzers and the Anarchist squad of the police department has not
yet discovered the meeting place of these dastardly miscreants?
Dear taxpayers, you are cheated by incompetent servants. I will reveal
to you the secret of these blackhanders. The conspirators meet daily under
your very nose, at 291 Fifth Avenue! Their chief is a voluble individual,
to all appearances a foreigner, who perpetrates his nefarious work under the
nom de plume of Alfred Stieglitz.
There, the secret is out. If you think this is all a joke you are mighty
mistaken. Among the bombthrowers I am acquainted with Alfred Stieglitz
stands without doubt in the foremost rank. He is a most dangerous agitator,
a great disturber of the peace; more than any other man he has helped to
undermine old institutions; he has helped to kill venerable beliefs, and to
destroy sacred traditions. An iconoclast in the realm of art, he has suc-
ceeded in shocking cruelly the moral guardians of classicism. At 291 he has
created a social center unique in character, a battlefield for new ideas, where
every sinner’s confession is accepted at its own value.
I do not know what the seven great wonders of modern times are, but
I am sure that 291 Fifth Avenue is one of the seven great wonders of the
island of Manhattan. Yet I confess, I dread the idea of entering the lift to
the sanctum of Stieglitz. Every time I notice an announcement of a new
exhibition at the Photo-Secession I am in great anticipation. Hastily I
speed toward Fifth Avenue. But when I reach the historic building I begin
to shiver, I feel uncomfortable, I turn and rush back to my garret; I am afraid
of the flood of words Stieglitz will let loose upon my poor nerves.
Now I have seen Stieglitz in concert halls and at public lectures; he is a
good listener and a shrewd observer. I met him at a private gathering and
he proved to be a brilliant conversationalist. Why, why then, does he attack
his visitors like a hurricane, leaving the poor mortals not the least chance to
say a word, much less express an opinion ?
It is his strength; he has a mission; he is obsessed with and possessed
by ideas. He tells the truth; he is impelled to preach the Gospel; he tries
to disturb mental lethargy, he endeavors to widen the artistic horizon of his
auditors.
Many understood and appreciated the new attempts in artistic expres-
sion, but Stieglitz first had the courage to bring the work of the striving
coiners of the new art before the public. For this he deserves great credit and
our thanks.
This new art has anarchic tendencies: such is the complaint of old mum-
mies. In this we rejoice. Classicism is always conservativism. A searcher
for new expression is naturally a rebel, and where do you find a rebel without
anarchistic tendencies ?

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