Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1910 (Heft 32))

PHOTO-SECESSION NOTES

THE PHOTO-SECESSION GALLERY
THE amount of material which The Secession had on hand last season
made it impossible to show all of it. It is our regret that a collection
of drawings by Elie Nadelman, of Paris, unexpectedly had to be re-
turned to the artist for an exhibition in Europe without our having been able
to place it before the New York public. We hope to get the collection back
again at some future time. In the meantime we feel it may interest the read-
ers of Camera Work to read what Mr. Nadelman had prepared for the
catalogue which was to explain the character of his work when exhibited in
the Little Gallery of the Photo-Secession. Mr. Nadelman wrote:
‘‘I am asked to explain my drawings. I will try to do so, although form
cannot be described. Modern artists are ignorant of the true forms of art.
They copy nature, try to imitate it by any possible means, and their works are
photographic reproductions, not works of art. They are works without style
and without unity.
“It is form in itself, not resemblance to nature, which gives us pleasure in
a work of art.
“But what is this true form of art? It is significant and abstract, i.e.,
composed of geometrical elements.
“ Here is how I realize it. I employ no other line than the curve, which
possesses freshness and force. I compose these curves so as to bring them in
accord or in opposition to one another. In that way I obtain the life of
form, i.e., harmony. In that way I intend that the life of the work should
come from within itself. The subject of any work of art is for me nothing
but a pretext for creating significant form, relations of forms which create a
new life that has nothing to do with life in nature, a life from which art is
born, and from which spring style and unity.
“From significant form comes style, from relations of form, i.e., the ne-
cessity of playing one form against another, comes unity.
“I leave it to others to judge of the importance of so radical a change
in the means used to create a work of art. (Signed) Elie Nadelman.”

The exhibition season, 1910-1911, of the Photo-Secession Gallery will
open about November fifteenth. The opening exhibition will be a mixed
one; it will contain, among other things, lithographs by Cezanne, Matisse,
Toulouse-Lautrec; drawings and oils by Henri Rousseau; and drawings
by Rodin. This exhibition will be followed by one of etchings, drawings
and wood cuts by Gordon Craig; one of paintings and drawings by Max
Weber. An exhibition of water-colors by Picasso, will be held in March.
An exhibition of Cezanne water-colors will also be held sometime during the
season, but the date is as yet not definite. Besides these exhibitions, several
photographic exhibitions are on the calendar. In short, the season of
1910-1911 at “291” promises much of vital interest.

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