Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1913 (Heft 42-43))

analysis of the value of this most important exhibition to the American people
can be found in Oscar Bluemner’s article “Audiatur Et Altera Pars: Some
Plain Sense on the Modern Art Movement,” which was published in the
Special Number of Camera Work, June, 1913.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALFRED STIEGLITZ
The period during which the public was attracted by the examples of
Modern Art shown at the International Exhibition at the Armory, was
deemed a proper one to show the relative place and value of photography.
No better work for this purpose could have been chosen than that of Alfred
Stieglitz. His prints represent the straightest kind of straight photography;
giving us at its best, the results of the honest photographer, whose ambition
it is to show the best his medium will give in the hands of the worker, who
puts his whole heart in bringing out clearly the possibilities of his medium,
and who loves it too much to attempt any suggestions of any other media.
The prints shown were selected from the work done by Mr. Stieglitz during
the past twenty-one years; the earliest print being dated 1892, and the latest
1912.
We call the attention of the readers of Camera Work to the reprint in
this Number of an article by Mr. Samuel Swift which appeared in the New
York Sun. We also call the readers’ attention, to the article on Photography
by Marius De Zayas, printed on another page in this Number. This article
should be read as a complement to De Zayas’s first article on Photography
which appeared in Camera Work Number XXXIX.
A comparison between Marin’s rendition of New York and Stieglitz’s
photographs of the same subject afforded the very best opportunity to the
student and public, for a clearer understanding of the place and purpose of
the two media.
EXHIBITION OF NEW YORK STUDIES BY FRANCIS PICABIA
In presenting the Studies of New York by Francis Picabia, “291” in-
troduced to the New York public examples of the latest stage of abstract
expression by one of the most sincere workers of the present day. A clear and
logical thinker, Picabia set forth his attitude in a short statement for the
benefit of the public that came to see his work. We reprint this statement
in full. The article by Gabriele Buffet (Mrs. Picabia) in June Special Number
of Camera Work is a further clear exposition of the attitude of those who
work along the lines of abstract expression. Naturally, in view of the Marin
and Stieglitz New York pictures, the interest in Picabia’s abstract expression
of New York was greatly intensified.
Picabia’s “ Preface ” written for his exhibition :
Art is one of the means by which men communicate with each other and objectivize the
deepest contact of their personality with nature. This expression is necessarily related to the
needs of the civilization of the time. It has its conventions as has any means of expression.
Its conventions are the limitation of the personality of the artist, a limitation which man

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