![]() ![]() For Stieglitz, the picture was far more important as a study in line and form. While several of Stieglitz's early pictures suggest an interest in working class motifs - or, at least, scenes of labor and industrial work - he looked at these people with the somewhat distant sympathy of the patrician. They have attempted to immigrate to America, and have been forced to return home. The Steerage depicts travelers boarding a crowded steamer going from New York to Bremen, Germany. Turning to more geometric motifs, effects of sharp focus, and high contrast, it celebrates a more mechanized phase of modern life in America. His later work reflects the decline of Pictorial photography and the rise of a new approach that claimed a value for photography as a revealer of truths about the modern world.Romantic in spirit, he was troubled yet fascinated by the rise of American power and sought to soften its apparent brutality by cloaking it in nature. Stieglitz's early work often balances depictions of soft, ephemeral, natural processes with motifs drawn from American industry.Many of his peers resorted to elaborate re-touching to create an impression of the handmade, but Stieglitz relied more on compositional effects and mastery of tone, often concentrating on natural effects such as snow and steam to create qualities similar to those of the Impressionists. Emerging first in the milieu of Pictorial photography, Stieglitz sought to gain recognition for his medium by producing effects that paralleled those found in other fine arts such as painting.In later years, influenced in part by Cubism and other trends, he became interested in straight photography, favoring more clarity and less lush effects. Insistent that photography warranted a place among the fine arts, Stieglitz's own work showed great technical mastery of tone and texture and reveled in exploring atmospherics. He also ran a series of influential galleries, starting with 291, which he used not only to exhibit photography, but also to introduce European modernist painters and sculptors to America and to foster America's own modernist figures - including his later wife, Georgia O'Keeffe. He is credited with spearheading the rise of modern photography in America in the early years of the 20 th century, publishing the periodical Camera Work (1903-17) and forming the exhibition society, the Photo-Secession. A vital force in the development of modern art in America, Alfred Stieglitz's significance lies as much in his work as an art dealer, exhibition organizer, publisher, and editor as it does in his career as a photographer. ![]()
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