Alfred Stieglitz

Although he is often today more widely remembered as the husband of Southwestern painter Georgia O'Keeffe, Alfred Stieglitz was one of the great voices of American modernism, helping to define both the formal aesthetics of American Modernism - and so American art from the beginning to the middle of the 20th century - as well as the relationship that would develop in the last century between the artist and the latest forms of mechanical reproduction, to borrow a phrase from Walter Benjamin (Connor 40). This paper explores his contributions to photography in particular and Modernism in general.

As we learn from his autobiographical writings, Stieglitz (2002) Stieglitz was the first-born son of Edward Stieglitz, a retired woolen merchant. Although his parents were not well educated themselves (and indeed perhaps because of this) they were determined that their children should have every possible educational advantage - including being exposed to as much art and culture as possible. For this reason, in 1881 the Stieglitzes moved to Europe to give their children access to European schools, museums, and theaters. In 1883, Stieglitz (who had attended elementary and some high school in the United States) entered the Berlin Polytechnic to study mechanical engineering - one of the first signs of what would be a lifelong dedication to novel ways of combining mechanical potential and artistic expression.

He would, however, remain enrolled for only a few months: When he purchased his fi

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layers the street, carved into grooves by the feet of pedestrians and the hooves of the horses but it retains a certain gleaming whiteness: This is snow that is certainly no longer pristine but has not yet been turned by the traffic of the city into mud. The horses - working hard to pull the heavy trolleys - are wreathed in steam, appearing almost as ghostly images. In contrast, the humans are darker, both more substantial and far less powerful. We know, simply by looking at this image, what it would be like working under such conditions. A broom propped nearby reminds us of what it is like to work outside in the cold, our hands slowly freezing to the handle of a broom, viewing the beauty of snow as some diabolical trick. Stieglitz helped pioneer the use of small, hand-held cameras that allowed photographers far more freedom than had the bulky, 19th-century models, and he encouraged other photographers to experiment with these new forms of cameras (as well as these new forms of photography) by working with a number of established photographic groups. However, as Norman (1997) notes, Stieglitz often found himself battling against the artistic conservativism of such groups and decided, in 1902, to found his own organization - wh

Category: Arts - A