The Photo-Secession & Fringes of 291

The Little Galleries or “291”

An intellectual gathering space that elevated photography to an art form. One of the first places to show African art, although inappropriately. Gallery was “lifted” above the street.

Camera Work

A photographic journal published by Alfred Stieglitz with the goal of establishing photography as fine art.

Pictorialism

Manipulating photographs to mimic the effects of painting.

Straight photography

Exploiting the things that the camera can do to make it as realistic as possible; unmanipulated

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Stieglitz, The Steerage. Captures the stark reality of immigration in the 20th century and reveals Stieglitz’s complex social position in it.

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Stieglitz, Old and New New York. Speak to the rise of modernity, technology, and transitions.

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Steichen, The Flatiron. Prime example of the pictorial style.

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Brigman, The Cleft of the Rock. Women as a part of nature, prominent female photographer.

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Strand, Abstractions. Rooted in Cubism in that it explores what an image can or is supposed to be. Is disorienting.

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Stieglitz, Hodge Kirnon, 1917. Kirnon operated the elevator to take people up to 291. The light functions as a halo. Said that 291 “fosters liberty and defines no methods.”

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Stieglitz, Equivalent.

• Stieglitz's choice of clouds as the subject matter was intentional, as the vagueness of transcendental meaning is difficult to sustain with material objects. 

• It becomes the fullest expression of what straight photography is and what it can do.