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

contempt. It may be this has all been justified just as the praises of it are
with certainty more justified. It has served its purpose wherever and when
it has been privileged to do so, and regretted when it has been denied. It
has created and fulfilled its unique and specialized function, that of bringing
to the view fairly and without ostent and as completely as conditions have
allowed, the artistic searchings of individuals and through its generosity and
faith has brought freely before a fairly curious public, the work of artists in
various fields of expression who have by reason of this originality for long
been excommunicated from the main body both in America and in Europe.
I should like to have intimated more adequately just what “291 ” means,
has meant all along its career and will continue as long as it survives. If I
have even insinuated even so vaguely what it has meant to the insider who
has found it to be his artistic savior, I shall perhaps have said something of
it. It can only, I think, be really intimated what this number has meant to
that place in the universe. It can be said, however, that there will always
be a strange and invaluable significance in this “291.” It has in any event
served the mystical purpose of establishing fair values in place of unfair; of
pure appreciation in place of contempt, and with regard to itself especially,
a genuine faith in place of suspicion too long alert and attentive. It has too
well proved at this time its purpose and its efficiency and its readiness to
serve where it finds service possible, has long since become one of the little
miracles of our day. A pure instrument is certainly sure to give forth pure
sound, so has this instrument of “291” kept itself as pure as possible that
it might thereby give out pure expression. I think never has a body of in-
dividuals—large or small—kept its head more clear, or its hands and feet
freer of the fetter of personal gain or group malice than has this “291” body.
It has come well of age and its maturity is gratifying. Certainly to the in-
sider and certainly it will sooner or later certify itself in the minds of every-
one who has had or will have even so great or even so slight an interest in
progressive modern tendencies toward individual expression. This is cer-
tainly what “291” is.
Marsden Hartley
Berlin, July 4, 1914.

36