Alfred Stieglitz

Alfred Stieglitz ca. 1925

1864 - born in New Jersey to family of German Jewish immigrants

1881 - at age 18 moved to Europe with his family, bought his first camera 1883 and decided to give up engineering career for photography, studied with Hermann Wilhelm Vogel, editor of the German journal Photographische Mitteilungen.

1890 - returned to New York and began to take photos of city scenes, emphasizing sharp black and white contrast and unusual lighting. Like the Impressionists, he sought to capture a feeling or impression as the essence of truth. Like the Ash Can School, he turned to everyday urban life for his subjects, trying to capture the realism of modern life.

1902 - founded the Photo-Secession group that published photographs in the journal Camera Work.

1905 - Stieglitz and Edward Steichen opened the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession at 291 Fifth Avenue in New York, also called the 291 Gallery.

1907 - made photo "The Steerage" with a multitude of shapes, white drawbridge with circular chain, round pipes, mast cuts the sky forming a triangle. Picasso saw this photo when working on his "Women of Avignon" painting.

1911 - first to show Picasso in the United States.

1913 - helped the Association of American painters and Scuptors pland the Armory Show that would include the Ashcan School realists and The Eight.

1917 - he closed the 291 Gallery and moved to Greenwich Village with 29-year old Georgia O'Keeffe.

1921 - Hearst hired Stieglitz's friend and fellow photo-secessionist Adolf de Meyer to work as fashion photographer for Harper's Bazar in Paris.

1925 - opened the Intimate Gallery in New York, that was replaced by the gallery An American Place in 1928.

1946 - died in New York.

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