Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1912 (Heft 37))

EXHIBITION OF PRINTS BY
BARON AD. DE MEYER

THE exhibition of photographs by Baron Ad. de Meyer, recently held
in the Gallery of the Photo-Secession, created its air of distinction.
This is to say, that the prints were out of the ordinary, since the little
room has acquired for itself an atmosphere which is quite foreign to routine
impressions. For the visitors who frequent it, whether they sympathize or
not with the work shown, at least have the habit of expecting to see something
that differs from the staple art-ware of other exhibitions. They look for a
choc and, even if what they receive is a shock in the plain ordinary English
sense, are disposed to tolerate the outrage, because it stimulates thought and
speculation. They have the satisfaction of being piqued to rebellion if not
appreciation. They are at least stirred to think, which itself may be some-
thing out of the ordinary.
To those who do not sympathize with, because they cannot understand,
the motive which inspires Mr. Stieglitz in his work at the Little Galleries,
this will sound like sensationalism. And, indeed, it is unfortunately impossible
for a man to blaze a trail which is out of the ordinary without running the risk
of incurring this charge. For example it is alien to usual experience that a
man should promote exhibitions without any idea of gain or even of pleasing
the public. That his motive should be, on the one hand, to give the public
a chance of seeing what he thinks it ought to be pleased to see and will be
able to see nowhere else in New York—at least until the example set at the
Little Gallery has been followed, as in the case of Rodin’s and Matisse’s draw-
ings, by the Metropolitan Museum—seems like an amiable form of lunacy.
That he should be on the lookout for evidence of honest individuality in young
unknown painters and strive to encourage it by exhibitions which display the
weakness as well as the strength of the beginner—what can this be but sen-
sationalism?
No one more than Mr. Stieglitz recognizes that there is a danger of this
sort of thing degenerating into sensationalism, or is more afraid of it. Accord-
ingly, he tries to balance one exhibition with another; off-setting, for example,
the startling radicalism of a Picasso with the stable conservatism of an Octavius
Hill; the experimental work of some young painter with the assured achieve-
ment of another photographer, such as De Meyer. Nor does the delicious
irony of this escape one. For years, Mr. Stieglitz has taken the advanced
position that photography is entitled to be considered a medium of pictorial
art, and has been ridiculed by the critics of painting. Now that the latter
are foaming in impotent bewilderment at the vagaries of modern painting he
offers as an antidote the sanity of the photographic process. After claiming
for photography an equality of opportunity with painting, he turns about and
with devilishly remorseless logic shows the critics, who have grown disposed
to accept this view of photography, that they are again wrong. As long as
painting was satisfied, as it has been for half a century, to represent the
appearances of things, photography could emulate it. Now, however, that it

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