Stieglitz and His Artists

This article was originally published on April 30, 2013

Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe is an excellent example of what an exhibit catalog should be.   Published as an accompaniment to the Met Museum exhibit held from October 2011 to January 2012, the catalog edited by Lisa Mintz Messinger painstakingly details the works included in the Alfred Stieglitz Collection that was bequeathed to the Met Museum by Georgia O'Keeffe over a period of years following the photographer's death in 1946.

Stieglitz is remembered today primarily as perhaps the greatest photographer ever to have lived.  His photographs, as seen in the "key set" at the National Gallery of Art, display a mastery of the medium that has never been equaled.  But there is another side to his character that is arguably of even greater importance.  In his quest to have photography fully recognized as an art form, Stieglitz managed a succession of galleries, beginning with 291, that displayed not only photography but also the most important modern art of the period.  Long before the 1913 Armory Show, Stieglitz had already introduced to America some of most influential European and American artists.  These included the first showing of Rodin's late pencil and watercolor figure drawings (1908), the first exhibition of Matisse's work ever held in the United States (1908), the first U.S. one-person exhibition of Cézanne (1911) and first U.S. one-person exhibition of Picasso (1911).   Though the primary mover behind these exhibits was Steichen, who was located in Europe at the time, Stieglitz deserves every credit for recognizing the importance of these artists and purchasing their work for his own collection. 

The catalog is exhaustive in detailing not only the careers of the artists who were collected by Stieglitz but also their dealings with the mercurial photographer.  In so doing, it gives insight into Stieglitz' temperament if only by showing which works he wished to acquire for himself.  The catalog and exhibit also offer a rare opportunity to see the work of a number of artists, once considered important, who have now fallen into relative obscurity.  Of course, it also presents seminal works by America's most important artists.  These include O'Keeffe's Black Iris, Arthur Dove's Shore Road and Charles Demuth's Figure 5 in Gold.  Most welcome are the technical notes detailing the materials used by the artists as well as their work methods.

Also refreshing in a catalog of this type is the candor with which Messinger describes Stieglitz' rocky relationship with the Met Museum itself.   He once wrote of it as follows:

"I know that I need bigger, truer, things than are housed there, in an atmosphere which repels me.  An atmosphere breathing of a cemetery dedicated to the dead rich."