Alfred Stieglitz

American

1864, Hoboken, New Jersey
1946, New York, New York

How Stieglitz championed fellow photographers

Show TranscriptHide Transcript

transcripts

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.

Works in the Collection

Please note that artwork locations are subject to change, and not all works are on view at all times.

Only a portion of SFMOMA's collection is currently online, and the information presented here is subject to revision. Please contact us at collections@sfmoma.org to verify collection holdings and artwork information. If you are interested in receiving a high resolution image of an artwork for educational, scholarly, or publication purposes, please contact us at copyright@sfmoma.org.

This resource is for educational use and its contents may not be reproduced without permission. Please review our Terms of Use for more information.

Alfred Stieglitz

Audio Stories

transcripts

Works in the Collection