International studio (32.1907)

The Photo-Secession in America

•and material, and by the use of pergolas or
lattice-work, as well as by the judicious use of
dark, formal masses of deep-green shrubs, which
frame tender greens and give the flowers a jewel-
like quality.

Professor Billing’s garden consists of circular
flower beds rising in terraces, which are crowned
with palms and other high-growing plants. He
places his flowers in masses of single colours (pale
yellow next to dark purple tulips when I saw them),
all arranged to bring out effective contrasts. The
garden by Roethe Brothers and Jacob Krug is
more luxurious — a marble tea-house, between
shady pergolas, covered with pendant clusters of
wisteria, fountains of bronze and marble, statuary
and terraces producing an effect of great elegance.
Architect Brahe’s design is characteristic of a gar-
den in the period of Rome’s greatest splendour.
Schulze-Naumburg has a simple suburban garden
enclosed by high walls and espalier fruit trees, the
-centre space being a simple lawn; and Henken
has imitated a Japanese garden with great skill and
taste. F. Bf.ntz.

was shown the first of three notable annual salons.
Finally, with a desire to put forward all that was
best in photographic possibilities, the Photo-Seces-
sion was inaugurated on February 17, 1902, the
real movement toward the organisation having
developed in consequence of the three salons
already mentioned.

The decisive note, however, was sounded in 1901,
when Mr; Stieglitz, who had been keeping together
the ends that reached from the various centres of
interest, and whose influence both at home and
abroad was more extensive than that of anyone
else, was requested to give an exhibition of his
own work at the Arts Club. Instead of making a
“ one-man-show ” of the affair, Mr. Stieglitz, keenly
appreciating the welfare of the movement as a
whole, very generously proposed to hold a com-
prehensive exhibit of American works. The idea
was to present the varied character in manner of
expression of such individual photographers as
ranked high in their art. It was to show that a
vitality, which was his own, stamped the work of
each, so that it would lead to the recognition of its

THE PHOTO-SECESSION
IN AMERICA. BY
MAUDE I. G. OLIVER.

It is now over nineteen years since the
Initial step was taken toward the uplifting
•of simple photography in America to the
dignity of photographic art, the year
1886 having marked an epoch in the
history of the movement. Then it was
that the first exhibit aspiring to anything
like international importance was held ;
and, at its close, what became known as
the “New York, Philadelphia and Boston
Joint Exhibition Series ” was established.

The institution, which provided for
annual displays to be presented succes-
sively in each of the three centres, con-
tinued with increasingly satisfactory results
until the spring of 1894, when, from the
artistic standpoint, a most encouraging
collection was shown in New York. It
was one which had been able to demon-
strate conclusively the existence of talent
sufficient to withstand the sharp test of a
rigorous jury. For the ensuing four years
no outward sign of activity was evidenced,
although the true life of the work
was gaining in force and, in 1898, culled
from the most rigid system of selection, child study by emma spencer

r99