International studio (44.1911)

Alfred Stieglitz

phy is more or less a delusion and a snare. It is
too new, too recent, too much a real part of the
logical development of contemporary life and
comes a bit too proudly and unconventionally to
be understood and accepted of its own time.
As a little clue I would simply throw out the
observation that the highest expression of the
imaginative and inventive genius of our time, espe-
cially of the best creative minds of America, is the
machine, in all its beautiful simplicity and coor-
dinate complexity; in it we find our sonnets, our
epics, and therein lies expressed eloquently the
true greatness of our age. Why, then, shouldn’t
some of our most sensitive, progressive and, in the
best sense, truly modern minds find in this exqui-
sitely sensitive machine, the camera, an instrument
responsive as none other to express what they feel
and see of the beauty and glory of life? Yours,
gentle but stubborn reader, is the onus, not mine,
and I leave you to answer it as best you may. As
for me, the work of Alfred Stieglitz confirms in the
most positive fashion that photography is such a
medium of expression. In his work is admirably
illustrated the evolution of pictorial photography,
from its most tentative struggle for self-expression
down to its most recent achievements that are


WINTER ON FIFTH AVENUE

BY ALFRED STIEGLITZ

today astonishing the world. He has been its
constant champion and most enthusiastic and in-
telligent expounder. From the very beginning of
his work in photography he has insisted on its rec-
ognition as a new medium of individual expression
and its present status is in no small degree due to
his untiring efforts.
Born in Hoboken, N. J., in 1864, of German par-
ents, he was sent at an early age to study mechanical
engineering at the Polytechnic in Berlin. Here he
became acquainted with Professor Vogel, chief of
the Photo-Chemical Laboratory, with whom he
studied the science and chemistry of photography.
It was not long before he gave up engineering to
devote all his time and thought to this compara-
tively new science with an absorbing earnestness
and enthusiasm that aroused comment. He per-
formed all the tasks assigned to him with more
than German thoroughness, working fourteen
hours a day in the laboratory, until he had mas-
tered the underlying science of his art. His work
began to attract attention and one day the great
Menzel commented favorably upon his audacity in
attempting to do with the camera what the
painter was then attempting with the brush.
Stieglitz had made a story-telling picture, which in
interest and composition aroused the old painter’s
enthusiastic commendation, chiefly because it was
done with a camera, however, and not at all be-
cause it occurred to him that the result was a work
of art, as judged by the accepted art canons of the
day. Stieglitz promptly resented this patronizing
attitude on the part of the painter, insisting that
photography be considered solely on its own
merits, like any other work of art, which was
laughed at as altogether absurd. To him many of
these photographs were as good as certain paint-
ings of the day, which were highly esteemed be-
cause of their faithful photographic rendering of
the facts of life, and he saw little difference be-
tween the two, except that much of this greatly
admired painting was to him very poor photog-
raphy.
He made a portrait of a man who was also being
painted, and it was obvious that the photograph
was better than the painting, yet the latter was
applauded as a work of art, while his photograph
was used surreptitiously to correct the painter’s
deficiencies of observation. To Stieglitz the result
was the thing, and then and there began his fight
for the recognition of photography as an additional
medium of expression. In reality it was much
more than that—it was a campaign against the
empty pretensions and accepted conventions

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