In the late 1880s, Alfred Stieglitz’s father bought a large property on Lake George in upstate New York, a popular resort area for upper-class New Yorkers. While Stieglitz’s parents and siblings spent their summers at the lakeside villa, Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe stayed at a farmhouse on the estate. The property was a constant in his life, serving as a retreat from the bustle of New York City and a source of lasting inspiration.

Country life agreed with Stieglitz. “The lake is perhaps my oldest friend,” he wrote to Sherwood Anderson in 1924. “Gosh! what days & nights we’ve had together. On & in & every which way. Calm beautiful hours. Mad ecstatic ones.— Dream hours.— Hours & days of quiet wonder. Ever the same lake & hills and never a moment of deadness.”[1]

Photographs taken by Stieglitz at Lake George include early images of his daughter, Kitty, as well as later, mature work such as his Equivalents and his many portraits of O’Keeffe and Rebecca Strand. He also traced the changes of the seasons and the effect of time, as can be seen in his photographs of the aging trees on the property, which seem to be reminders of his own mortality. He did much of his printing there as well, bringing photographic supplies from the city and working in the kitchen, a small barn, and even outdoors.

[1] Alfred Stieglitz to Sherwood Anderson, Aug. 7, 1924, Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keeffe Archive, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, box 2, folder 29.