Alfred Stieglitz and the American Avant-Garde

Alfred Stieglitz was arguably the greatest photographer in the history of the medium.  His work, as seen in the "key set" at the National Gallery of Art, displays a mastery that has never been surpassed.  Photographs such as  "The Terminal" (1893), cannot fully be appreciated until one recalls they were created in an era when the only equipment available consisted of bulky view cameras that held similarly cumbersome glass plates.  Even so, "The Steerage" from 1907 is often considered the finest single photograph ever taken.  

And yet there is another side to Stieglitz that is equally important and yet often overlooked.  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.  In the years before the 1913 Armory Show, Stieglitz had already introduced to America some of most influential artists in Europe.  The 291 shows 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-man show given to of Cézanne (1911) and first one-man show given to Picasso (1911) outside France.  Though the primary mover behind these exhibits was Edward Steichen, who was located in Europe at the time, Stieglitz deserves every credit for having recognized the importance of these artists and for having purchased their work for his own collection.

In addition, Stieglitz acted as patron and mentor to several seminal American artists.  Most prominent among these were John Marin, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley and Max Weber.  And of course it was Stieglitz who discovered Georgia O'Keeffe and immortalized her in a stunning series of portraits while at the same time doing everything in his power to promote her work.  It is without question that the course of art in this country would have been significantly different without Stieglitz's herculean efforts.

There has recently been given more attention to Stieglitz's role as artistic muse. In 2011, New York's Met Museum staged an excellent exhibit entitled Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe comprised of works from the Alfred Stieglitz Collection bequeathed to the museum by Georgia O'Keeffe over a period of years following the photographer's death in 1946.  The irony is that the museum, in the person of its curator Bryson Burroughs, had in 1911 refused to purchase the eighty-three Picasso works shown by Stieglitz at 291 when offered them for the paltry sum of $2,000.

Long before the Met Museum exhibit, however, a groundbreaking study of Stieglitz's complex relationship with modern art was published in 1977.  This was Alfred Stieglitz and the American Avant-Garde by William Innes Homer.  Homer, who died in 2012, was a knowledgeable critic of American art who also authored books on Thomas Eakins, Albert Pinkham Ryder and Robert Henri.  His expertise was invaluable in this book in evaluating Stieglitz's role in the development of the American avant-garde.  He was moreover a sympathetic biographer who in this volume displayed a deep understanding of both the photographer's strengths and weaknesses.  Homer also traced here the careers of the American artists Stieglitz championed and noted the influence upon them of the Europeans artists shown at 291.  In later chapters, he discussed the work of O'Keeffe and Paul Strand.

Homer's style, while erudite, is engaging and highly readable.  If there is a fault with this book, it's not due to him.  That fault is the quality of the illustrations which are here only shown here in black & white reproductions, a major shortcoming when discussing the works of artists such as Matisse.  I'd suggest keeping on hand a copy of the lavishly illustrated catalog to the above mentioned Met Museum exhibit as an adjunct to remedy this situation.  Otherwise, Homer's study stands on its own as a major piece of scholarship.