Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1909 (Heft 26))

be classed as a fine art, it has been and will be in the future of great service in
establishing a truer art ideal that at present exists among the mass of people
and many so-called artists.
Much of modern art has for its motif exact representation of facts,
cleverly rendered, or arrangements of tones and lines—the exterior of things.
Why spend years of labor to achieve this result, which any one with an educated
taste can accomplish, barring color, with a machine ? Already there seem to
be signs that the public recognize this and begin to demand more vital things.
The phrase “work of art” will in time be used more sparingly, and will
designate creations of a mind gifted with poetic and imaginative insight. If
the camera by its very limitations can further this point of view, it has, indeed,
rendered a service to art.
Alice Boughton.

THE PHOTO-SECESSION GALLERY

HOUSE WARMING AT 291

ON December first, 1908, after a house-warming dinner held at
Mouquin’s, those Secessionists who live in New York or in the
vicinity gathered at 291 Fifth Avenue to assist in the opening
of the new quarters of the Photo-Secessions. To those who
last spring had seen the unspeakable garret which was to become
the new Little Gallery, the transformation appears to be nothing
short of a miracle. The same homelike, restful spirit, so characteristic of
the old rooms, greets you. It is even emphasized, perhaps, by the more
intimate proportions of the rooms and by the little refining touches, due to
the care with which every detail of fabric, color and line have been attended to
under the same vigilant directorship which never lets a faulty detail go by
uncorrected. It represents, in fact, the spirit of the Photo-Secession that only
through devotion in small things can the whole be made approximately
perfect.
According to custom, the season was started with the Members’ Exhi-
bition. Thirty names, several of them new, were represented, showing the
movement to be alive and spreading. The average quality of the prints was
high, higher than in any previous Members’ Exhibition. Moreover no worker
predominated, as, owing to the smaller quarters, no one was permitted to
show more than three prints. The result did credit to the Photo-Secession.

MARIUS DE ZAYAS AND JOHN NILSEN LAURVIK
The members’ show was followed by an exhibition introducing the
work of the caricaturist, Marius de Zayas. For two weeks the press and the
public came and smiled at his daring characterization of well-known people
about town as they appeared to him in the street, in the theatre or on the stage.
Members of New York’s social set had the place of honor on the main wall,
flanked on one side by members of the Photo-Secession, and on the other by
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