Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer who bolstered modern art and played a key role in making photography an art form. He was also renowned for art galleries that he used to run in the 20th century. He performed his nuptial rites with an artist called Georgia. Alfred Stieglitz was born in New Jersey to Edward Stieglitz and Ann Warner. His father was in the army. He took admission in a public school in his high school, but he found the education system to be inadequate there. He studied mechanical engineering at Technische Hochschule in Berlin. He studied chemistry in Hermann Wilhelm Vogel. He was not only a marvellous photographer but also was extremely good at chemistry. He is still remembered as one of the best photographers of history who gave a new dimension and meaning to photography. Many people say that some people are God gifted with talents. For me, it's also about the amount of industriousness that a man puts into giving meaning to his talents.
Interest in Photography
When Alfred Stieglitz bought his first camera, he travelled through the countryside of Europe and took pictures of landscapes and peasants in Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy. He once said that initially, he developed an aptitude for photography as a child would develop towards a toy, then it turned into his passion and then into an obsession. Through self-analysis and research he started seeing photography as an art. He then wrote articles on the beauty and technical aspects of photography. He won laurels for his two masterpieces in photography namely Last Joke, Bellagio and Amateur Photographer. His reputation grew a lot in German and British magazines of photography after he simultaneously bagged the first and the second position the following year in the same competition.Career
Although Alfred Stieglitz was an artist, he refused to sell his photographs. He bought a small business of photography for himself so that he could easily earn his living. His profits burgeoned in a short span of time. He also wrote The American Amateur Photographer magazine. He won a plethora of accolades and laurels for his photography at various exhibitions including the Boston Camera Club. In 1892 he purchased his first-hand camera by which he took two of his most famous images called Winter, Fifth Avenue and The Terminal. He also became quite famous through his articles on photography and how photography is also a form of art. His articles contained critical and technical contents. On his honeymoon, he clicked some of his most famous pictures A Venetian Canal, The Net Meander and A Wet Day on the Boulevard, Paris. He was also elected as a member of The Linked Ring. He joined The Camera Club of New York as a vice-president and started developing programs for the club and indulged himself in all the aspects of the Organization. He transformed the newsletter of this club into a magazine called Camera Notes and was given the full authority of the publication. It was considered as the best photographic magazine in the world. He then started including articles on art and aesthetics in the magazine. He met a new photographer called Edward Steichen who was a painter originally and who also saw photography as an art. The two shared a very good camaraderie.Key set
He produced more than 2500 photographs in his lifetime. After his death, his wife assembled the best of his collections. At certain times she included different versions of the same picture. In the year 1949, she donated the first part of her key set to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. She also added some of her pictures, and it became the largest and the complete work of Stieglitz work anywhere in the world. It contained not only the work of Stieglitz but also of his wife, O'Keeffe.Legacy
(1)He is considered as the most important figure in the history of visual arts in America. (2)Alfred Stieglitz had different abilities as a Renaissance man. His accomplishments were marvellous and remarkable, and his dedication was pertinacious. He was not only a genius photographer but also an inspirational publisher, a great writer, an owner of a gallery and an organizer of the exhibition of modern arts. (3) The pictures of his wife Georgia O’ Keeffe were sold at a very high price. (4)A plethora of his work is held at Minneapolis Institute of Arts which is a museum of Fine Arts located at Minneapolis.