Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession
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The 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. This was helped by Stieglitz's publication from the 291 offices of the magazine Camera Work. It was the first dedicated art photography gallery in the world, and was funded by the sale of prints, subscriptions to the journal Camera Work, and Alfred's financial allowance.
Stieglitz later used this space to introduce to the United States the early modernist art works from European artists - such as Henri Matisse, Auguste Rodin, Henri Rousseau, Paul Cezanne, and Pablo Picasso. After the Armory show of 1913, Steiglitz exhibited works by Constantin Brancusi, Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp and other avant-garde artists.
In its final years the 291 gallery featured American modern artists - such as John Marin, Arthur Beecher Carles, Bessie Buehrmann, Arthur Dove, Alfred Henry Maurer, Marsden Hartley, Andrew Dasburg, Abraham Walkowitz and Oscar Bluemner. It also famously showed the early watercolors and charcoals of the young Georgia O'Keeffe, who would later marry Stieglitz.
The gallery was located in a couple of rooms on the top floor of a brownstone building at 291 Fifth Avenue - prior to 1905 these had been Steichen's living quarters. 291 also served as a vital social meeting-point for New York's avante-garde artists and writers.
The gallery was followed by other Stieglitz photography galleries in New York: "The Intimate Gallery" (1925-1929), and "An American Place" (1929-1947).
[edit] External links
- History of 291, written by the U.S. National Gallery of Art (with an emphasis towards the 291's role in painting rather than photography).
