Names are abbreviated as follows:
AA Ansel Adams
AS Alfred Stieglitz
PS Paul Strand
GOK Georgia O’Keeffe
RS Rebecca Salsbury
RSS Rebecca Salsbury Strand
RSJ Rebecca Salsbury James
AP Anita Pollitzer
Archives and private collections are abbreviated as follows:
AAA Harwood Foundation Archives, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
ASA/YCAL Alfred Stieglitz Archive, Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, Connecticut
CCP Paul Strand Collection, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona
GOKMRC Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico
MDL Mabel Dodge Luhan Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, Connecticut
MFC Macmahon Family Collection, Austin, Texas
MOMA Calvin Tomkins Papers, Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York, New York
NGA National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
NYPL Billy Rose Theater Division, New York Public Library, New York, New York
RSJ/YCAL Rebecca Salsbury James Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, Connecticut
SFC Salsbury Family Collection
OPENING
“Never was there such”: John Tennant, “The Stieglitz Exhibition,” The Photo-Miniature 16, no. 183 (July 1921): 138. My account of this exhibition is based on the contemporary reviews and recollections noted in the following notes, as well as other sources, including Guido Bruno, “Stieglitz: Photographer,” Bruno’s Review, June 1921, pp. 185–86; Walter Pach, “Art,” The Freeman, February 23, 1921, pp. 565–66; and F.C.T., “Alfred Stieglitz,” British Journal of Photography, March 4, 1921, p. 126.
“Stieglitz has not divorced”: Hamilton Easter Field, “At the Anderson Galleries,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 13, 1921.
“His resurrection”: F.C.T., “Alfred Stieglitz.”
“They make me want to forget”: Tennant, p. 139.
“showed us the life”: Paul Rosenfeld, “Stieglitz,” The Dial 70 (April 1921): 398.
one man, who ranted: Letter from an anonymous “lover of art” to Mitchell Kennerley, February 9, 1921, forwarded to ASA/YCAL.
“psychological revelations”: “Photographs by Alfred Stieglitz,” New York Times, February 13, 1921.
“The spirit of sex”: Rosenfeld, “Stieglitz,” Port of New York, p. 273.
“He loves her so”: Hapgood, p. 339.
“He spends an immense”: Henry McBride, “Modern Art,” The Dial 70 (April 1921): 481.
“Mona Lisa got”: Henry McBride, “O’Keeffe at the Museum,” New York Sun, May 18, 1946.
“universality in the shape”: AS, quoted in “Studio and Gallery,” New York Sun, February 19, 1921.
“laid bare the raw material”: Herbert Seligmann, “A Photographer Challenges,” The Nation, February 16, 1921, p. 268.
“Stieglitz…accepted” to “destroys”: PS, “Alfred Stieglitz and a Machine,” unpaginated.
“affirmation, life kindled”: RSS, “My life, like all Gaul…,” unpublished ms., YCAL.
“a tightly integrated foursome”: Belinda Rathbone, “Portrait of a Marriage,” The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal, vol. 17 (1989): p. 90.
“There was a constant grinding”: GOK, quoted in AS, Georgia O’Keeffe: A Portrait, unpaginated.
CHAPTER 1: BORN IN HOBOKEN
“[He] would spend”: Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 15.
“musicians, artists, and literary folk”: AS, quoted in Norman, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 15.
“in the pure and virtuous”: Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 49.
Stieglitz later said: On Stieglitz’s illegitimate daughter and his support of her, see Greenough, ed., MFO, p. 164, n. 347.
“It was, after all”: AS, quoted in Norman, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 34.
“the spiritual emptiness”: ibid.
“You push the button”: AS, Twice a Year 1 (1938): 95–96.
“a fish out of water”: AS, Twice a Year 8/9 (1942): 106–7.
“Every stitch in the mending”: AS, “My Favorite Picture,” Photographic Life, 1899, pp. 11–12; reprinted in Whelan, ed., Stieglitz on Photography, p. 61.
“He felt that the driver”: Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 118.
“so-called ‘American Photography’ ”: AS inscription on verso of Winter—Fifth Avenue, AS, Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set, vol. 1, p. 51.
“A driver I saw”: AS, quoted in Norman, “Stieglitz’s Experiments in Life,” New York Times Magazine, December 29, 1963, p. 12.
“the key to all art”: AS, “A Plea for Art Photography in America,” Photographic Mosaics, 1892; reprinted in Whelan, ed., Stieglitz on Photography, p. 30.
“technically perfect”: AS, quoted in Norman, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 42.
“I would rather be”: AS, quoted in Paul Rosenfeld, “The Boy in the Dark Room,” in America & Alfred Stieglitz, ed. Frank et al., p. 75.
“the development of an organic idea”: Publication Committee letter, Camera Notes, July 1897; cited in Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 145.
“I had a mad idea”: AS, quoted in Norman, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 43.
“To demand the portrait”: AS, quoted in the wall text for Georgia O’Keeffe (1921), Metropolitan Museum of Art 2002 exhibition “Twentieth Century Photographs,” as cited in Hoffman, Stieglitz, p. 331, n. 127.
“all parts of a woman’s body”: Seligmann, Alfred Stieglitz Talking, pp. 138–39.
The halation (the blur or halo): AS, “Night Photography with the Introduction of Life,” American Annual of Photography and Photographic Times Almanac for 1898; reprinted in Whelan, ed., Stieglitz on Photography, pp. 81–86.
“His attitude toward the club”: Theodore Dreiser, “The Camera Club of New York,” Ainslee’s 4 (October 1899): 324–25.
“no longer any dispute”: Theodore Dreiser, “A Master of Photography,” Success 2 (June 10, 1899): 471.
“Not only during my first visit”: Sadakichi Hartmann, “The New York Camera Club,” Photographic Times, February 1900, p. 59.
“a full share of knocks”: Caffin, pp. 33, 49.
“I shall use the camera”: Niven, p. 75.
“I think I’ve found my man”: AS, quoted in Newhall, p. 119.
“Camera Notes was a lie”: AS, quoted in John Francis Strauss, “The Club and Its Official Organ,” Camera Notes (January 1901): 153–61; Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 174.
“Yours truly”: AS, quoted in Norman, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 48; on the Secession, see Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 179.
“Those of a similar mind”: AS, “The Photo-Secession,” American Annual of Photography and Photographic Times Almanac for 1904, p. 42; cited in Homer, p. 28.
“no one but Stieglitz”: Steichen, unpaginated.
“rather helter-skelter”: ibid.
“too ostentatious”: ibid.
“To advance photography”: Camera Work (July 1903), unpaginated supplement.
“battling…”: AS, quoted in Norman, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 66.
“he was not for a moment”: Niven, p. 163.
Camera Work was itself a work of art: Rosenfeld, “The Boy in the Dark Room,” America & Alfred Stieglitz, p. 82.
“to the special necessities”: Sidney Allen, “A Visit to Steichen’s Studio,” Camera Work 2 (April 1903): 25–28.
Kerfoot combined inked silhouettes: J. B. Kerfoot, “The ABC of Photography,” Camera Work 8 (October 1904): 40.
“It is to America”: AS, “Six Happenings 1: Photographing the Flat-Iron Building,” Twice a Year 14/15 (1946–1947): 188–90.
“familial dysfunction”: Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 200.
“During that period”: AS, “Some Impressions of Foreign Exhibitions,” Camera Work 8 (October 1904): 34.
“routinely exaggerated”: Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 201.
“pictorialists throughout the land”: Sadakichi Hartmann, “Little Tin Gods on Wheels,” The Photo-Beacon, September 1904, pp. 282–86; cited in Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 205.
“with which the walls”: AS, “The ‘First American Salon’ at New York,” Camera Work 9 (January 1905): 50.
“Eventually, ‘291’ came to be”: Whelan, ed., Stieglitz on Photography, p. 177.
CHAPTER 2: PORTRAIT OF 291
“without the stereotyped”: AS, “Editorial,” Camera Work 14 (April 1906): 17.
“The vanity of these people”: Charles FitzGerald, Evening Sun, December 9, 1905; reprinted in Camera Work 14 (April 1906): 35.
“in impulse and form”: Hapgood, pp. 336–37.
“You forgot all about New York”: Paul Haviland, “The Home of the Golden Disk,” Camera Work 25 (January 1909): 21.
“You can give up”: AS, “Four Happenings,” Twice a Year 8/9 (1942): 122.
“Steichen had become”: Niven, p. 212.
“The real battle”: Joseph Keiley, “The Photo-Secession Exhibition at the Pennsylania Academy of Fine Arts,” Camera Work 16 (October 1906): 51.
“Smith is a young woman”: James Huneker, reprinted in AS, “The Editor’s Page,” Camera Work (April 1907): 37–38.
“thoughts loosened”: Smith, cited in Hoffman, Alfred Stieglitz: A Beginning Light, p. 228.
“the pliability”: AS, “Our Illustrations,” Camera Work 27 (July 1909): 47.
During the 1907–1908 season: Sarah Greenough makes this point in Modern Art and America, p. 31.
“Every movement of her body”: Arthur Symons, quoted in “The Rodin Drawings at the Photo-Secession Galleries,” Camera Work 22 (April 1908): 35.
“not the sort of thing”: W. B. McCormick, New York Press; reprinted in Camera Work 22 (April 1908): 40.
“the prurient prudery”: J. N. Laurvick, New York Times; reprinted in Camera Work 22 (April 1908): 35.
“I had never heard”: GOK, “Stieglitz: His Pictures Collected Him,” New York Times Magazine, December 11, 1949, p. 26.
“I have another cracker-jack”: Steichen to AS, 1908, quoted in Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Matisse, p. 113.
“the first blow”: AS, Twice a Year 1 (1938): 100.
“Here was the work”: Unsigned (AS), Camera Work 23 (July 1908): 10.
“brought a recurrence”: Bulliet, Apples and Madonnas, p. 55.
“Compared to these memoranda”: Charles FitzGerald, reprinted in Camera Work 23 (July 1908): 10.
“There are some female figures”: Edgar Chamberlin, reprinted in Camera Work 23 (July 1908): 10.
“This is not the ocular”: Charles Caffin, “Henri Matisse and Isadora Duncan,” Camera Work 25 (January 1909): 18.
“that perfect freedom”: Unsigned [Agnes Ernst], “The New School of the Camera,” New York Morning Sun, April 26, 1908; cited in Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 234.
“I feel almost like an apostle”: Ernst to AS, quoted in ibid., p. 234.
“Why not”: AS, Twice a Year 8/9 (1942): 124–26.
“He was always there”: Steichen, unpaginated.
“a quiet nook”: Paul Haviland, “The Home of the Golden Disk,” Camera Work 25 (January 1909): 21.
“champion modern tendencies”: ibid.
“Marin’s watercolors sang”: AS, quoted in Norman, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 97.
“the largest small room”: Hartley, p. 61.
“toward the realization”: Paul Haviland, “Photo-Secession Notes,” Camera Work 30 (April 1910): 54.
“unless it is to make color”: Elizabeth Carey, “News and Notes of the Art World,” New York Times, March 20, 1910.
“vivisectionists”: James Townsend, in American Art News; reprinted in Camera Work 30 (April 1910): 47.
“ruthless materialism”: Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 279.
“No show was ever”: F. Austin Lidbury, “Some Impressions of the Buffalo Exhibition,” American Photography (December 1910): 676; cited in ibid., p. 284.
“Even Mrs. Stieglitz”: AS to George Seeley, November 21, 1910, ASA/YCAL; cited in ibid., pp. 283–84.
“Just as the Photo-Secession”: AS, quoted in Norman, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 79.
“I see none”: AS to Ward Muir, January 30, 1913, ASA/YCAL; cited in Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 292.
“red rag”: Steichen to AS, undated [Summer 1910], cited in Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 294.
“The display is”: Arthur Hoeber, New York Globe; reprinted in Camera Work 36 (October 1911): 29.
“the most vital”: AS to Sadakichi Hartmann, December 22, 1911; cited in Norman, Alfred Stieglitz, pp. 109–10.
“We stand before the door”: AS to Heinrich Kuehn, October 14, 1912; cited in Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 299.
“Much of the expression”: Hapgood, pp. 339, 341.
“this celebrated nursery”: Felix Grendon, “What Is Post-Impressionism?” New York Times, May 12, 1912.
“You will see there”: “The First Great ‘Clinic’ to Revitalize Art,” New York American, January 26, 1913; quoted in Norman, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 118.
“explosion in a shingle factory”: On this phrase, see Francis N. Naumann, “An Explosion in a Shingle Factory,” in The Armory Show at 100, ed. Marilyn Satin Kushner, Kimberly Orcott, and Casey Blake, pp. 203–9.
“a masochistic reception”: Stuart Davis, quoted in Barbara Haskell, “The Legacy of the Armory Show,” in The Armory Show at 100, pp. 399–400.
“It set off a blast”: Kenneth H. Miller, quoted in ibid., p. 410.
“People are beginning”: AS to Ward Muir, January 7, 1913; quoted in Anne McCauley, “The ‘Big Show’ and the Little Galleries,” in ibid., p. 145.
“The period during”: Paul Haviland. “Photographs by Alfred Stieglitz,” Camera Work 42/43 (April–July 1913): 46.
“one of the significant”: Swift, quoted in Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 317.
“unsurpassable”: Edgar Chamberlin, quoted in ibid., p. 317.
“Visitors at the Armory”: Royal Corissoz, quoted in ibid., pp. 316–17.
CHAPTER 3: THE DIRECT EXPRESSION OF TODAY
“because one’s own children”: AS, quoted in Norman, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 119.
“Colleagues tried to prove”: ibid., p. 124.
“twenty or thirty people”: AS to Charles Caffin, November 17, 1914, ASA/YCAL; quoted in Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 330.
“There was a dust-covered”: Steichen, unpaginated.
all sixty-eight of the replies: Quotations in this and the following paragraph are from Camera Work 47 (July 1914): passim.
“Close friends seemed”: AS, quoted in Norman, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 124.
“What are nations”: AS to Anne Brigman, September 28, 1914, ASA/YCAL; quoted in Niven, p. 405.
“Disagreement seemed”: Niven, p. 443.
“Tragedies are happening”: AS to Anne Brigman, April 16, 1915; quoted in Niven, p. 418.
“the best criticism”: PS, interview, December 28, 1971, Homer, pp. 4–5.
“You’ve done something new”: PS interview in Hill and Cooper, eds., p. 3.
“It was like having”: PS, quoted in Tomkins, Paul Strand, p. 20.
“The exhibition by Alfred Stieglitz”: PS, unsigned and identified as “Photographer; 1904—graduated 1909,” Ethical Culture School Record (New York: Society for Ethical Culture, 1916), p. 94.
“I had to, myself”: PS, interview, 1974, Homer, p. 2.
“The picture filled”: Hambourg, p. 15.
“I had a feeling”: PS, quoted in Tomkins, Paul Strand, p. 19.
“I like the word”: PS to Calvin Tomkins, July 7, 1973, Tomkins notes, MOMA.
“There was a fight”: PS interview, quoted in Hill and Cooper, eds., p. 4.
“provincial”: PS to parents, quoted in Hambourg, p. 25.
“Everything is extremely American”: PS to AS, May 16, 1915, ASA/YCAL.
“the skyscraper civilization”: Rosenfeld, Port of New York, p. 272.
“Steichen, lanky and boyish”: Alfred Kreymborg, Troubadour, p. 127.
“without the outside influence”: PS, “Photography,” Camera Work 49/50 (June 1917): 780–81.
“watching people walk”: PS, quoted in Tomkins, Paul Strand, p. 19.
“In whatever he does”: AS, “Photographs by Paul Strand,” Camera Work 48 (October 1916): 11–12.
“because ‘291’ knew”: ibid.
“silvery picture”: Royal Cortissoz, “Random Impressions,” New York Tribune; “Notes and News,” American Photography 10 (May 1916): 281; both cited in Greenough, ed., Modern Art and America, p. 247.
a “straight” photographer: Charles Caffin, “Paul Strand in ‘Straight’ Photographs,” New York American, March 20, 1916.
“straight all the way”: AS to R. C. Bayley, April 17, 1916, ASA/YCAL.
“I learned how you build”: PS, quoted in Tomkins, Paul Strand, p. 19.
“It has been a summer”: PS to AS, August 28, 1916, ASA/YCAL.
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