Thursday, February 28

Our discussion of photography shifted from the landscape to the city in photographs. We began by looking at photos by Alfred Steglitz, who photographed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Steglitz primarily photographed New York and was influenced a great deal by pictorialism. Steglitz really records reality of everday life from his perspective and attempts to see what we may not see. He was very much interested in form, but also the relationship between the city and the natural environment. Interestingly, he was also the husband of Georgia O'Keefe. We also viewed photos by Berenice Abbott, who was a French photographer who also photographed New York around the 1930s. Abbott captured the power of the city by photographing enormous buildings, but was also very much interested in form. She really wanted to capture as much as the city as possible. We next looked at photos by Helen Levitt, who also captured New York City but in the mid-20th century. Levitt was known as a street photographer and recored the lives of people in the city. She captured random moments, but they are moments that often have a deeper meaning. Levitt was very much interested in the city as the center of the universe. Outside of New York City, Eugene Atget captured Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Atget was interested in everyday Paris, particularly older parts of the city as the area was changing. His point of view was more historical. He became inspiration for future street photographers. Finally, we looked at photos by Brassai, who began photographing in the 1930s. Brassai captured the underworld of Paris and was interested in street photography.

KEY WORDS/PEOPLE
*Alfred Steglitz- was an American photographer who worked a lot in New York during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is often called the “father of art photography” as he was a champion of photography as an art form. He was influenced by pictorialism. He records reality of everyday life from his eye in an attempt to capture the things that an ordinary person might miss. He was interested in form and also the relationship between the city and natural environment. He was also husband and champion of Georgia O’Keefe. Later in life, he began to photograph nature.

*Georgia Totti O'Keeffe (1887—1986) was an American artist. She is associated with the American Southwest, where she found artistic inspiration, and particularly New Mexico, where she settled late in life. O'Keeffe has been a major figure in American art since the 1920s. She is chiefly known for paintings in which she synthesized abstraction and representation in paintings of flowers, rocks, shells, animal bones and landscapes. She was also married to Alfred Steglitz.

*Camera Work- was a quarterly photographic publication by Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo-Secessionists from 1902 to 1917 that was known for its high-quality reproductions and its effort to establish photography as a fine art.

*Photo-Secession movement- was a group of photographers led by Alfred Stieglitz in the early 1900s that helped to raise standards and awareness of art photography. In 1902 Stieglitz formed an invitation-only group, which he called the Photo-Secession, to force the art world to recognize photography "as a distinctive medium of individual expression." Among its members were Edward Steichen, Gertrude Kasebier, Clarence White and Alvin Langdon Coburn. Photo-Secession held its own exhibitions and its work was frequently published in Stieglitz's journal Camera Work which acted as a mouthpiece for the group, although it was technically independent from it.

*Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession (later known as 291)- was a tiny fine art photography gallery in New York City created and run by Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen from November 1905 to 1917. The gallery helped bring art photography, initially that in the Pictorialist style, to the same level of appreciation in America as painting and sculpture.

*Berenice Abbott- Abbott was an American photographer who studied in France. She is most well known for her black and white photography of New York City during the 1930s. She wanted to capture as much of the city as possible. Her work provides chronicles of buildings that have since been destroyed.

*Eugene Atget- was a French photographer who photographed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is most well known for his photographs of Paris. He was interested in everyday life of Paris, particularly the older areas of the city at a time that the city was changing. He became an inspiration for future street photographers. He had more of a historical point of view.

*Brassaï- (1899 –1984) was a Hungarian photographer, sculptor, and filmmaker who rose to fame in France. He began photographing in the 1930s and was interested in the underworld of Paris. He was a street photographer.

RANDOM CLASS NOTES
-Photography evolves within modernism
-Modernism is strongly associated with the city.
-In late 19th century, Paris is center of art world and London was also important
-In beginning of 20th century, New York becomes center of world’s high culture
-New York is captured as a multi-cultural environment in 1930s

*Helen Levitt- was an American photographer in the mid 20th century. She captured New York and recorded people in the city (primarily children). She was thus a street photographer. Some images are somewhat surreal. One of her most famous is of 3 children with masks. She captured random moments but they had meaning. She was interested in the city as the center of the universe.