id: 115262 accession number: 1935.55 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1935.55 updated: 2022-01-07 22:43:07.571000 Water Tower and Radio City, New York, 1933. Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946). Gelatin silver print; image: 24 x 19.1 cm (9 7/16 x 7 1/2 in.); matted: 55.9 x 45.7 cm (22 x 18 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Cary Ross, Knoxville, Tennessee 1935.55 title: Water Tower and Radio City, New York title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1933 creation date earliest: 1933 creation date latest: 1933 current location: creditline: Gift of Cary Ross, Knoxville, Tennessee copyright: --- culture: America, 20th century technique: gelatin silver print department: Photography collection: PH - American 1900-1950 type: Photograph find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946) - artist Photographer, writer, publisher, gallery owner, leader of the Photo-Secession, and mentor to numerous other photographers, Alfred Stieglitz was a pivotal force during the late 19th and 20th centuries in promoting photography in America and gaining its acceptance as an art form. He also pioneered in bringing modern art to this country through the avant-garde European and American work presented in the pages of his well-known journal, Camera Work, and at his gallery, "291." Stieglitz (born in Hoboken, New Jersey) first became interested in photography in the early 1880s while studying mechanical engineering in Germany at the polytechnic institute in Charlottenburg (now a suburb of Berlin). Following a class with the great photochemist Hermann Wilhelm Vogel, Stieglitz turned his attention to photography and soon began writing technical articles on the subject for European journals. In 1887 he won a prize for a photograph submitted to the Holiday Work Competition sponsored by Amateur Photographer magazine. When he returned to the United States three years later, Stieglitz became a partner in the Photochrome Engraving Company; running a business did not interest him, however, and his association with the company lasted only five years. In addition to pursuing his own photographic work and writing articles on pictorial photography for various American journals during the 1890s, Stieglitz became editor of the American Amateur Photographer in 1893. Four years later he took on the editorship of Camera Notes, the journal of the newly formed Camera Club of New York. In 1902 Stieglitz organized the first Photo-Secession exhibition at the National Arts Club in New York, launching an organization that was to play a major role in the fight for recognition of photography as an art form. At the end of the year he began publishing Camera Work, the journal of the Photo-Secession, which soon became one of the premier photographic publications of the day (the first issue, dated January 1903, was published in December 1902). In 1905, with the assistance of painter and photographer Edward Steichen, Stieglitz opened the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession at 291 Fifth Avenue. The gallery, which soon became known as "291," provided Stieglitz with a center from which to promote art photography and exhibit the work of its finest practitioners. In addition to presenting work by the most advanced American and European pictorial photographers, Stieglitz began showing the work of modern European artists, including Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Paul Cézanne. He also organized numerous exhibitions of art photography for museums and expositions in this country and in Europe, including the famous 1910 International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography at the Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo. After closing "291" in 1917, Stieglitz focused on his own work, beginning a series of portraits of artist Georgia O'Keeffe (whom he married in 1924) and a series of cloud pictures called Equivalents, which he exhibited in the 1920s at the Anderson Gallery in New York. During these years he also produced a group of photographs of New York City skyscrapers, as well as images of Lake George, New York. Stieglitz continued to photograph into the 1930s. He also ran two galleries from the mid-1920s until his death: the Intimate Gallery (1925-29) and An American Place (1929-46). Both galleries presented the work of a small group of American modernists, including O'Keeffe, Charles Demuth, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Paul Strand, as well as Stieglitz's photographs. M.M. --- measurements: Image: 24 x 19.1 cm (9 7/16 x 7 1/2 in.); Matted: 55.9 x 45.7 cm (22 x 18 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Written in pencil on recto: "Water Tower and Radio City, / New York-1933 / by Alfred Stieglitz [signed]" translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: The Modern Spirit: American Painting 1908-35 opening date: 1977-08-19T04:00:00 The Modern Spirit: American Painting 1908-35. Gallery of the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (August 19-September 11, 1977); Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (September 28-November 20, 1977). title: The Precisionist Aesthetic in American Art opening date: 1989-01-24T05:00:00 The Precisionist Aesthetic in American Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 24-April 9, 1989). title: Views of the City opening date: 2000-11-14T00:00:00 Views of the City. Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, NM (organizer) (November 14, 2000-March 14, 2001). title: Alfred Stieglitz New York opening date: 2010-09-14T00:00:00 Alfred Stieglitz New York. South Street Seaport Museum, New York, NY (organizer) (September 14, 2010-January 10, 2011). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * CMA, December 12, 1934 - January 13, 1935: "Exhibition of Photographs," no exhibition catalogue.
London, England, The Arts Council of Great Britain, 1977: "The Modern Spirit: American Painting 1908-35."
San Francisco, Museum of Modern Art, September 9 - November 7, 1982: "Precisionist Painting and American Photography," traveled to St. Louis, Baltimore, Des Moines, CMA through October 9, 1983; cat # 131, p. 238, repr. plate 53.
CMA, January 24 - April 9, 1989: "The Precisionist Aesthetic in American Art," folder 191.89.
CMA, June 7 - September 8, 1991: "Object Lessons: Cleveland Creates an Art Museum."
Sante Fe, The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, November 14 - March 14, 2001: "Views of the City."
South Street Seaport Museum, NYC (9/14/2010 - 1/10/2011): "Alfred Stielglitz New York" --- PROVENANCE --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS --- IMAGES