Alfred Stieglitz

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Alfred Stieglitz : biography

January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946

A Stieglitz portrait of [[Georgia O’Keeffe.]]

O’Keeffe and modern art (1918–1924)

During the previous eighteen months Stieglitz and O’Keeffe had been writing to each other with increasing passion and seeing each other whenever possible (she was living in Texas for most of this time). In early June, O’Keeffe moved to New York after Stieglitz promised he would provide her with a quiet studio where she could paint. They were inseparable from the moment she arrived, and within a month he took the first of many nude photographs of her. He chose to do this at his family’s apartment while his wife Emmy was away, but she returned while their session was still in progress. She had suspected something was going on between Stieglitz and O’Keeffe for a while, but his audacity in bringing her to their home both confirmed her fears and naturally outraged her. She told him to stop seeing her or get out. Stieglitz, who some believe had set up the entire situation in order to provoke the confrontation, did not hesitate; he left and immediately found a place in the city where he and O’Keeffe could live together. Uncertain about what this new freedom meant for their relationship, they slept separately for more than two weeks. By the end of July they were in the same bed together, and by mid-August when they visited Oaklawn "they were like two teenagers in love. Several times a day they would run up the stairs to their bedroom, so eager to make love that they would start taking their clothes off as they ran."

Stieglitz filed for divorce almost immediately, but once he was out of their apartment Emmy had a change of heart. Due to the legal delays caused by Emmy and her brothers, it would be six more years before the divorce was finalized. During this period Stieglitz and O’Keeffe continued to live together most of the time, although she would go off on her own from time to time. She was relatively free-spirited and out-going with Stieglitz and his friends, but she needed solitude for weeks or months at a time when she focused on painting or creating. This arrangement worked well with Stieglitz’s own lifestyle, and he used the times when she was away to concentrate on his photography and on his continued promotion of modern art.

One of the most important things that O’Keeffe provided for Stieglitz was the muse he had always wanted. He photographed O’Keeffe obsessively between 1918 and 1925 in what was the most prolific period in his entire life. During this period he produced more than 350 mounted prints of O’Keeffe that portrayed a wide range of her character, moods and beauty. He shot many close-up studies of parts of her body, especially her hands either isolated by themselves or near her face or hair. The strength of these photos is that, as O’Keeffe biographer Roxanna Robinson points out, her "personality was crucial to these photographs; it was this, as much as her body, that Stieglitz was recording." They remain one of the most dynamic and intimate records of a single individual in the history of art.

In 1920 Stieglitz was invited by Mitchell Kennerly of the Anderson Galleries in New York to put together a major exhibition of his photographs. He spent much of that year mounting recent works, and in early 1921 he hung the first one-man exhibit of his photographs since 1913. Of the 146 prints he put on view, only seventeen had been seen before. Forty-six were of O’Keeffe, including many nudes, and by agreement with O’Keeffe she was not identified as the model on any of the prints. It was in the catalog for this show that Stieglitz made his famous declaration: "I was born in Hoboken. I am an American. Photography is my passion. The search for Truth my obsession." What is less known is that he conditioned this statement by following it with these words:

"PLEASE NOTE: In the above STATEMENT the following, fast becoming "obsolete", terms do not appear: ART, SCIENCE, BEAUTY, RELIGION, every ISM, ABSTRACTION, FORM, PLASTICITY, OBJECTIVITY, SUBJECTIVITY, OLD MASTERS, MODERN ART, PSYCHOANALYSIS, AESTHETICS, PICTORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY, DEMOCRACY, CEZANNE, "291", PROHIBITION. The term TRUTH did creep in but it may be kicked out by any one."