-
Recto of print -
Verso of print
Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864–1946)
From the Back-Window “291”, 1915
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949.710
Between 1915 and 1916, Stieglitz made a number of photographs of buildings and of trees visible from the window of his gallery, as well as portraits of friends and colleagues in its interior. Plainly energized by this new work, in which he fully left painterly Pictorialism behind, he wrote to his friend R. Child Bayley: “I have done quite some photography recently. It is intensely direct. Portraits, buildings from my back window at 291, a whole series of them, a few landscapes and interiors. All interrelated. I know nothing outside of Hill’s work which I think is so direct, and quite so intensely honest. It is all 8 x 10 work. All platinum prints. Not a trace of hand work on either negative or prints. No diffused focus. Just the straight goods. On some things the lens stopped down to 128. But everything simplified in spite of endless detail.”[1]
Additional resources related to this object are to the right. Comprehensive material analysis can be found in the Object Research PDF.
[1] Alfred Stieglitz to R. Child Bayley, Nov. 1, 1916, Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keeffe Archive, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, box 4, folder 88.