NARRATOR: 

In the early decades of the twentieth century, photography in the United States underwent a revolution. On the East Coast, photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz led the charge.  

SANDRA PHILLIPS:  

One could say that American art without Stieglitz would not have been so ambitious or complete if he had not done all he did for the United States and — and for photography in the early twentieth century.  

NARRATOR:  

That’s SFMOMA Curator Sandra Phillips.  

PHILLIPS:  

Stieglitz was an artist himself, and a profoundly important and interesting one. But he was also a person in the public. He had ambitions not only for himself, but for his medium. He was also interested in making photography a viable modern art form. And to do that, he introduced his friends, other photographers, to major contemporary artists. He was the first person in America to show Picasso and Matisse. And he used these people as examples, not for copying, but to show the kind of ambition he wanted his photographers to have in converting their pictures into something as high an achievement as great art.