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Home>Research>Online Editions>Alfred Stieglitz Key Set>Stieglitz’s Portfolios and Other Published Photographs

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# Stieglitz’s Portfolios and Other Published Photographs

*Julia Thompson*

Edward J. Steichen, *Alfred Stieglitz*, 1907, Autochrome, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1955 (55.635.10). © 2019 The Estate of Edward Steichen / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY

Alfred Stieglitz has been celebrated as one of the greatest practitioners of the photogravure process, but his understanding and exploration of other photomechanical printing methods is less well known. While a mechanical engineering student at the Königliche Technische Hochschule, Berlin, in the mid-1880s, Stieglitz was introduced to photogravure and photomechanical processes by the renowned photo-chemist Professor Hermann Wilhelm Vogel (1834–1898), who convinced him that photography would be useful to his field of study.[1]  [1]Theodore Dreiser, “A Master of Photography,” *Success Magazine* 2 (10 June 1899), 471. Stieglitz later recalled that, while he understood little of Vogel’s lectures on photographic principles and aesthetic theory, he reveled in the four hours each week that were devoted to practical work.[2]  [2]Dorothy Norman, *Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer* (New York, 1973), 26. In 1869 Vogel had founded the Verein zur Förderung der Photographie, Berlin (Association for the Advancement of Photography), a professional organization whose members were admitted by election. At the time of Stieglitz’s own election to the association in March 1885, Vogel embarked on a series of lectures that described the processes used by various German and Austrian photomechanical printing establishments, based on information that he had gathered the previous fall. The association published the lectures in a series of articles in its journal, *Photographische Mitteilungen*.

Germany in the 1880s was “teeming with amateur photographers,” and Vogel, a staunch supporter of amateurism, founded the Deutsche Gesellschaft von Freunden der Photographie (German Society of the Friends of Photography) in 1887.[3]  [3]Stieglitz, “Correspondenz: zur Bildnung eines Amateur-Vereins,” *Der Amateur-Photograph* 1:3 (March 1887), 48. (Stieglitz was elected a member several months later.) Amateur photography was also booming in Britain and the United States, and, along with it, the publication of magazines devoted to the subject, including *The Amateur Photographer* (London, 1884) and *The American Amateur Photographer* (New York, 1889). As the number of periodicals rose so too did rapid advances in photo­mechanical printing processes as publishers sought inexpensive methods of reproduction. A typical issue usually contained one or two quality reproductions—such as collotype, Woodburytype, or photo­gravure—but with the refinement of the halftone process, which allowed text and images to be printed on the same page, the number of possible illustrations grew. By the mid-1890s it was common for periodicals to reproduce one or two works, often a frontispiece, using a high-quality process, usually photogravure, and several halftones.

The photogravure process was made possible by Alphonse Louis Poitevin’s significant discovery in 1855—that pigment could be combined with light-sensitive bichromated gelatin to make a print. Poitevin applied his findings to an experimental version of what would later be known as the carbon process, in which pigment (such as carbon black) suspended in bichromated gelatin was exposed to light under a negative, causing the gelatin to harden in areas that received more light, and remain soft in areas that received less light. The unhardened areas dissolved when washed with warm water, leaving a positive image of pigmented gelatin. The method became practical in the mid-1860s when the pigmented gelatin layers (tissues) became commercially available. Poitevin patented his carbon process, and, at the same time, a printing process using lithographic ink and a photographically prepared lithographic stone. Known as the collotype, it was further improved by Joseph Albert of Munich (1825–1886). Albert used glass plates coated with bichromated gelatin over a layer of hardened gelatin and exploited the ability of the gelatin to fracture in a fine reticulated pattern. After exposure to light through a positive image the plate was washed and then printed.[4]  [4]The reticulated pattern of the collotype can be seen under magnification, but to the naked eye the collotype appears to have a continuous tone, making it difficult to distinguish from a true photograph. By the 1880s the collotype displaced the Woodbury type, a photomechanical version of the carbon process patented by Walter Bentley Woodbury around 1865, as the highest-quality method of reproducing photographs. 

Peter Henry Emerson, *Marsh Weeds*, in or before 1895, from *Marsh Leaves,*photogravure on wove paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Harvey S. Shipley Miller and J. Randall Plummer, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1990.113.1.f

The early pioneers of photography Joseph Nicéphore Niepce (1765–1833) and William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877) had experimented with photogravure, but it was not until the beginning of the 1880s that Karl V. Klíč (1841–1926) used carbon tissue to make a reversed transparency that acted as an etching resist. Klíč dusted a copper plate with powdered bitumen and fixed it with heat, creating a ground that not only protected the metal but also provided a surface to which the resist could adhere. The negative carbon print was mounted on the prepared plate, exposed to light, and then etched. The plate was then gently heated, inked, and printed using an intaglio (etching) press.[5]  [5]Photogravures appear to be of a smooth, continuous tonal range, but under magnification an extremely fine grain is usually evident. Generally a plate mark (an indentation in the paper caused by the pressure of the press on the beveled edge of the plate) is visible, although the print can be trimmed so that the plate mark is removed. Photogravure was preferred by a small but influential group of photographers that included Peter Henry Emerson. Emerson favored the platinum process for his original photographs, but for his published work he felt that the “only satisfying method” of reproduction was photogravure; he even published several large-format photogravures that were sold individually. By 1890 he had learned to etch and print his own plates from the London publisher Walter L. Colls. Although Colls warned him that photogravures were best printed on plate paper (a soft paper that took ink well), Emerson experimented with a range of papers and inks. He wrote: “[I]n etchings of all kinds the choice of papers and inks is most vital.”[6]  [6]P. H. Emerson, *Wild Life on a Tidal Water* (London, 1890), preface. Reprinted in Nancy Newhall, *P. H. Emerson: The Fight for Photography as a Fine Art* (New York, 1975), 124. Emerson and Stieglitz began a lively correspondence soon after Emerson, acting as sole juror, awarded Stieglitz first prize in the 1887 “Holiday Work” competition of *The Amateur Photographer.*[7]  [7]Dorothy Norman, *Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer* (New York, 1973), 33. 

Stieglitz returned to the United States in the fall of 1890 at the request of his parents after the death of his sister Flora. His father had secured a position for him at the Heliochrome Company in New York, a photo­engraving firm run by John Gast, a former employee of William Kurtz (1834–1904). (Ultimately Kurtz was the first to perfect a three-color halftone process.)[8]  [8]Kurtz employed Ernst Vogel (son of Hermann Wilhelm Vogel) to help him with his endeavor and by the summer of 1892 he obtained what he considered to be satisfactory results. He was able to fix an image on three separate printing plates, each screened to receive ink of a different color. Kurtz sent a large quantity of the color halftone reproductions to the elder Vogel in Germany, and they were bound in as color illustrations in the January 1893 number of *Photographische Mitteilungen*. The publication caught the photographic world by surprise, and left *The Photographic Times*wondering “why Mr. Kurtz, of New York, should have felt called upon to announce his results first in a foreign publication.” Kurtz failed to patent his process. See William Welling, *Photography in America: The Formative Years, 1839–1900* (New York, 1978), 359. Although Stieglitz later claimed to have had little interest in running a business, he seems to have been intrigued with photoengraving: in the spring of that year, he had traveled to Vienna to study at the Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt, the state printing and photography school, headed by photo-chemist and historian Josef Maria Eder (1855–1944).[9]  [9]Dorothy Norman, *Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer* (New York, 1973), 35. Stieglitz was in Vienna to gather information on European printing methods. He had discussed the possibility of starting up his own photoengraving firm in the fall of 1888 with W. H. Patten, who enthusiastically offered his services as manager of the enterprise “when you are ready to start it” (W. H. Patten to Stieglitz, 11 January 1889, Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keeffe Archive, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven). Unable to gain admittance to Eder’s photo­engraving class in the summer, however, he traveled for a month before returning to Berlin.[10]  [10]Nancy Newhall, unpublished manuscript, 49, copy in NGA files. 

Advertisement for the Photochrome Engraving Company, *The International Annual of Anthony’s Photographic Bulletin* 9 (New York, 1896), unpaginated, Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Washington

Stieglitz restructured the struggling Heliochrome Company under the name Photochrome Engraving Company with two partners, Louis Schubart and Joseph Obermeyer, his former roommates from Berlin. The firm reportedly did not receive a single order the first year; nonetheless, Stieglitz established a printing laboratory and introduced the firm’s employees to new processes. These sessions met with “sullen resentment from all but one of them,” Frederick (Fritz) Goetz.[11]  [11]Sue Davidson Lowe, *Alfred Stieglitz: A Memoir/Biography* (New York, 1983), 93. See also Geraldine Wojno Kiefer, *Alfred Stieglitz: Scientist, Photographer, and Avatar of Modernism, 1880–1913* (New York, 1991), 124. Goetz, an American, had been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Photography during Stieglitz’s tenure. He also had been employed in Kurtz’s studio. Like Stieglitz, he looked forward to the day when the halftone process, which had been in regular use since the 1880s, could be used to achieve color results. Stieglitz saw great potential in the halftone, believing it “ruled the world of illustration” because of its speed and economy as well as its ability to ­ duplicate closely the look of an original photograph.[12]  [12]Stieglitz, “Halftone Blocks with Woodcut Finish,” *The American Annual of Photography and Photographic Times Almanac for 1897* (New York, 1896), 221. By 1903 the firm could proudly advertise that they could produce “halftones from articles for catalogue work; color-work without the hallmark of the mechanical three-color process; line-work on zinc or on copper; and, in fact, reproductions of every description, large or small, expensive or inexpensive” as well as their specialty, the “king of all processes,” ­photogravure.[13]  [13]Advertisement for the Photochrome Engraving Company (*Camera Work* 1 [January 1903], unpaginated). 

Around the same time, in the early 1890s, Stieglitz regularly published articles in *The American Amateur Photographer*. In July 1893 he joined Frederick Beach as co-editor. “We have no doubt but what important improvements in the magazine will be undertaken, and will include, perhaps, a greater number and variety of illustrations,” Beach wrote. “[Stieglitz’s] judgment of the value of photographic work is always good, while his technical knowledge . . . is unsurpassed.”[14]  [14]F. C. Beach, “Editorial Comment,” *The American Amateur Photographer* 5 (July 1893), 318. Stieglitz’s photographs had earlier appeared in the magazine as photogravures printed by the New York Photogravure Company and the Photochrome Engraving Company had also produced numerous halftones of his work.[15]  [15]*Lago di Misurina, The Tyrol* appeared in December 1891. The following September, *A Bit of Lake George* was featured. The New York Photogravure Company also printed *On Lake Como* for the December 1893 issue of *The Photographic Times*. To herald his firm’s successful achievement of its own color halftone process, Stieglitz reproduced a hand-colored platinum print of *The Last Load* in the January 1894 issue. Editors Beach and Stieglitz commented that although they did “not, as a rule, favor colored photographs, as they are generally crude and inartistic,” this example was “particularly interesting as a specimen of colored photography.”[16]  [16]“Editorial Comment: Our Illustrations,” *The American Amateur Photographer* 6 (January 1894), 25. 

Cover of *The American Amateur Photographer* 6, no. 10 (October 1894), Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Washington

In January 1895 Stieglitz became sole editor of *The American Amateur Photographer* and he used the opportunity to disentangle himself from the Photochrome Engraving Company.[17]  [17]Beach was demoted to editor of the scientific and society news departments as the result of involving the magazine in a lawsuit. Stieglitz later recalled that, although he “loved fine printing,” he was disillusioned with the photoengraving business, as it demanded “speed and quantity” rather than “careful craftsmanship.”[18]  [18]Dorothy Norman, *Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer* (New York, 1973), 35. Cheating customers and slipshod practices disgusted him, and he lamented that to sustain the business required “a policeman on one side, a lawyer on the other.”[19]  [19]Dorothy Norman, *Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer* (New York, 1973), 41. He did nonetheless go on using the firm for halftone work during his tenure at the magazine, at the same time commissioning photogravures from E. C. Meinecke and Company.[20]  [20]Many of the Meinecke photogravures, including several of Stieglitz’s images, featured tiny pictures etched in their borders by an unknown member of the Meinecke firm. A landscape with windmills is etched in the border of *On the Dykes* (December 1895); a wooden shoe is on *Going to Prayers* (August 1895); and a row of cottages is on *Watching for the Return* (January 1896). Other prints have no such engravings. The Meinecke Company also printed most of the photogravure frontispieces for *The Photographic Times* after the summer of 1894, while the Photochrome Engraving Company printed the halftones. The Meinecke Company may have ceased production by January 1898, when *A Decorative Panel* appeared in *The Photographic Times* printed by William Sartain of Philadelphia. In June, *A Bit of Venice*, printed in blue ink by the Photochrome Engraving Company, appeared; subsequently, all photogravures were printed by the Photochrome Engraving Company: *Early Morn* (August 1898); *A Venetian Well*(December 1899); *Snow—Foreground Study* (February 1900); and *Landing of the Boats*(December 1900). 

Stieglitz severed his connection with *The American Amateur Photographer*in February 1896 to devote himself to improving the standard of pictorial photography in the United States. He had already joined the Society of Amateur Photographers in New York in 1891; in 1896 the Society merged with the New York Camera Club to form the Camera Club of New York. Stieglitz aspired to lead the Camera Club in sponsoring the finest annual exhibition of photography in the world. From the early 1890s, photographic salons had been organized in the major European centers. To commemorate these salons and allow viewers to “vicariously experience the exhibition,” exhibition organizers published deluxe portfolios, fine books in their own right.[21]  [21]Weston Naef, *The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz: Fifty Pioneers of Modern Photography* (New York, 1978), 30. The leading group of creative photographers, The Linked Ring, issued an elaborate portfolio, *Pictorial Photographs: A Record of the Photographic Salon of 1895*, published by Walter Colls and featuring twenty photogravures, including Stieglitz’s *Hour of Prayer* (published as *Scurrying Home*, Key Set number 218). Three editions of the portfolio were printed: a regular one, on plate paper; an edition of one hundred, on India paper, a soft, thin paper that was mounted to a second sheet during printing; and an edition of fifty, on Japanese paper.[22]  [22]“India proof” (sometimes shortened to India or Indian) is the nineteenth century term for impressions printed this way; today they are referred to as *chine collé* (Chinese glue). See Hubert Herkomer, *Etching and Mezzotint Engraving: Lectures Delivered at Oxford* (London, 1892), 70. Japanese papers are generally made by hand using bark from three shrubs that grow only in Japan. Only a few of these papers were shipped to the United States; the best known is the vellum paper used in the printing of limited editions and deluxe editions. This paper is almost as tough as leather and has a beautiful mottled surface. Of the three principal mills making this paper the largest was the Insetsu Kioku (Imperial Mill) owned by the Japanese government and located in Oji, near Tokyo. In the mid-1870s the export of limited quantities of this paper was allowed and it was shipped first to Paris and later to London and New York. During the Sino-Japanese war of 1894 the government encouraged the production of the paper by a private mill in Shizuoka, a coastal town south of Tokyo. The Shizuoka Mill produced paper nearly the quality of that made at Oji, and it was sold in large quantities in the United States, Britain, and France. See Richard Tracy Stevens, *The Art of Paper Making in Japan* (New York, 1909), 1–5. Colls’ photogravures were called “capitally done,” and the portfolio as a whole “one of which not only the Salon and Mr. Colls, but photography itself may be proud.”[23]  [23]*Camera Notes*1 (October 1897), 54. Stieglitz’s work was featured in the 1896 portfolio (*Watching for the Return*), and the 1897 portfolio (*Winter—Fifth Avenue*). 

Other important publications included the *Première Exposition d’Art Photographique* (1894), a lavish volume issued in a limited edition of thirty, printed on Japanese paper, as well as a regular edition of 470, printed on white Marais paper, a French mold-made paper with deckled edges on all four sides and a felt-like finish. In the deluxe edition, the recipient’s name appeared on the colophon. The photo­gravures (including Stieglitz’s *Card Players*) were printed in a variety of ink colors.[24]  [24]Stieglitz’s work was also included in the 1895 catalogue (*A Wet Day on the Boulevard*) and the 1896 catalogue (*Winter, Fifth Avenue*). The elegant *Nach der Natur* (After Nature) was published at the request of the German and Silesian Society of the Friends of Photography by the Berlin Photographic Company to commemorate the 1896 “Internationalen Ausstellung für Amateur-Photographie” (Inter­national Exhibition of Amateur Photography) in Berlin. *Nach der Natur* contained thirty-two photogravures (including Stieglitz’s *Scurrying Home*), each so superb that Stieglitz was moved to proclaim photogravure “the most perfect of all photographic reproduction processes.”[25]  [25]Stieglitz, “Reviews and Exchanges: ‘Nach der Natur’,” *Camera Notes* 1 (January 1898), 85. 

Cover of *Picturesque Bits of New York and Other Studies*, 1897, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Alfred Stieglitz Collection

The exceptional quality and beauty of these publications inspired Stieglitz’s own portfolio in photogravure. *Picturesque Bits of New York and Other Studies*, published in 1897 by Robert Howard Russell, inc­luded twelve prints (see Key Set numbers 83, 109, 115, 120, 148, 154, 174, 183, 220, 251, and 252). The photogravures were printed in an edition of twenty-five on plate paper using different ink colors. “We have been accustomed to see the fine tones and graduations of our best workers so utterly ruined in the process of engraving and printing that we are agreeably surprised at the wonderful delicacy and transparency of these examples,” wrote publication committee member William M. Murray. *Winter on Fifth Avenue* was “undoubtedly the finest reproduction of the set . . . there is absolutely nothing lost of the finest gradations of the original.”[26]  [26]William M. Murray, “Reviews and Exchanges: ‘Picturesque Bits of New York, and Other Studies,’” *Camera Notes* 1 (January 1898), 84–85. Stieglitz himself made the steel engravings from the diapositives (positives made from negatives), and used rapid plates to preserve the detail and softness of the originals. In addition, he directly supervised the printing of each image.[27]  [27]*Picturesque New York* was apparently an earlier title of the portfolio. See *Photo-Secession: Catalogue* 6 [exh. cat., Lunn Gallery, Graphics International Ltd.] (Washington, 1977), 124–125. 

Cover of *Camera Notes* 1, no. 1 (July 1897), National Gallery of Art Library, Washington

Stieglitz’s goal was to publish a magazine that would set a new standard of excellence in pictorial photography, which would in turn attract the finest photographers to the club’s yearly salon. The Camera Club intermittently published a leaflet without images, *The Journal of the Camera Club*. As vice-president of the club, Stieglitz proposed redirecting the $250 budgeted for the *Journal* to the publication of a quarterly. He argued that by selling advertising space, the Camera Club could afford to produce a substantial, beautifully illustrated periodical. The membership greeted his proposal with enthusiasm and he was appointed chair of the publication committee and editor. The first issue of the new magazine, *Camera Notes*, appeared in July 1897 in two editions: a regular edition of one thousand on plate paper and a deluxe “Booklovers” edition of ten on Indian paper. Stieglitz proposed including two photo­gravures with each number, “representing some important achievement in pictorial photography; not necessarily the work of home talent, but chosen from the best material the world affords.”[28]  [28]Stieglitz, “Untitled,” *Camera Notes* 1 (July 1897), 3. In addition, halftones would occasionally illustrate articles of interest. The regular column, “Our Illustrations,” informed readers that the Photo­chrome Engraving Company had printed the photogravures of the American contributors, while Walter Colls had printed those of the Europeans.[29]  [29]Many of the works printed by Walter Colls had been included in the Salon portfolios and were therefore printed from the same plates. For example, Stieglitz’s *Scurrying Home*, which appeared in the October 1899 number, had been featured in the 1895 portfolio. The exception was the work of J. Craig Annan, which was printed by his own firm, T. & R. Annan and Sons, Glasgow.[30]  [30]Both Thomas and his son James Craig Annan had learned the photogravure process directly from Klíč in Vienna in 1883. Klíč sold the British rights to his process to the Annans. The Annans were responsible for a renewed interest in the work of David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson when they used their plates to make photogravures that appeared in *Camera Work* in 1905, 1909, and 1912. In a letter to Paul Strand, Stieglitz mentioned these photogravures, reminding Strand that they were “not reproductions, but photogravures, as permanent as a Dürer or Rembrandt etching” (13 December 1931, Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keeffe Archive, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven).*Camera Notes* was pronounced “better than any of its contemporaries on this side of the water” in one respect, at least. “We allude to its promise to give us two photogravures in each number . . . [F]rom what we know of those responsible for the *Camera Notes*, every one of its photogravures will be a work of art.”[31]  [31]“‘Camera Notes,’ No. 1,” *Camera Notes* 1 (October 1897), 53. 

In the first two issues of the journal Stieglitz featured photogravures of his own works made several years prior, *Portrait of Mr. R*. (1895) and *A Bit of Venice* (1894). Two years later, he included another earlier work, *Mending Nets* (1894). It proved to be a “most difficult picture to reproduce effectively” and “unfortunately lost much of its quality and charm in the reproduction.” The difficulty may have been owed to the inability of the photogravure process to capture the heavily textured watercolor paper on which the original photograph was printed (Key Set number 212). In the late 1890s, Stieglitz had been experimenting with painterly effects using carbon, manipulated platinum, and gum bichromate processes, and the halftone process allowed for a more successful depiction of the color and texture of these prints.[32]  [32]Halftone reproductions of these experimental processes appeared in April 1900 (oxalate and mercury prints); April and October 1901 (gum bichromate prints); and July 1902 (glycerine prints). 

Stieglitz included several photogravures in an exhibition of his photographs at the Camera Club in May 1899. It was his intention to “tell truthfully the story of his work from its beginning to the present time.” The result of nearly fifteen years of “constant and serious labor in the field of pictorial photography,” the exhibition traced his career through images as well as processes, and included Aristotypes, platinum prints, carbon prints, and gum bichromate prints along with photo­gravures. To commemorate the exhibition, Stieglitz published a “refined and elegant example of the printer’s art” to represent “his idea of what a catalogue should be.”[33]  [33]Joseph T. Keiley, “Untitled,” *Exhibition of Photographs by Alfred Stieglitz* [exh. cat., The Camera Club] (New York, 1899), unpaginated. On the cover of the catalogue was a photogravure of *Gossip—Katwyk*.

As head of the *Camera Notes* publication committee, Stieglitz issued a limited edition of 150 portfolios in the fall of 1899 to exemplify the “most characteristic examples of the work of those Americans whose names are best known to the club or whose influence has been most pronounced on the development of pictorial photography in America.” Additional works were to be added to the portfolio over time so that ultimately the complete series would be the most “representative collection of pictures ever published, and should be in the hand of every serious student of pictorial photography, not alone as a record of representative American work, but because of the exceptional opportunity afforded by it of perfecting one’s own work through the careful, conscientious study of that or others.” The portfolio, *American Pictorial Photography*, featured eighteen photogravures printed on Indian paper (including Stieglitz’s *Reflections—Venice and Early Morn*), along with a title page and table of contents printed in red and black on Japanese paper, all enclosed within green cloth covers stamped in gold with the seal of the Camera Club. The name of the subscriber and the number of the copy were printed on the reverse of the title page, and each copy was countersigned by Stieglitz. Arranged, engraved, and printed by the Photo­chrome Engraving Company, the photogravures were “so remarkably executed as to deceive the eye into the belief that they are original platinum and carbon prints and not merely reproductions therefrom. The engravers have every reason to feel proud of their work, which has attracted great attention wherever shown, and which deserves to be ranked with, if not as, the best work of the kind ever done in this country.”[34]  [34]Joseph T. Keiley, “The Portfolio,” *Camera Notes* 3 (October 1899), 86. *Reflections—Venice* was printed from the same plate that was used to print *A Bit of Venice*, which appeared in *Camera Notes*(October 1897). *Reflections—Venice* was printed in blue/black ink; *A Bit of Venice* was printed in green/black ink. A second portfolio, *American Pictorial Photography, Series II*, was issued in 1901. It did not include work by Stieglitz. 

In the late 1890s Stieglitz began a series of photographs of New York that would explore the city’s “myriad moods, lights, and phases,” a theme he would revisit throughout his career.[35]  [35]Dorothy Norman Papers, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson (unpublished). Several works from this series were published as photogravures in *Camera Notes*, beginning in October 1901 with *An Icy Night* (1898) and continuing in January 1902 with *Spring Showers: the Coach* (1901) and *Spring Showers: the Sweeper* (1901). Stieglitz seems to have printed the two *Spring Showers* as well as another image made around this time, *The Flatiron* (1903) (Key Set number 288), only as small- and large-format photogravures.[36]  [36]An installation photograph of the 1901 London Photographic Salon exhibition reveals that *Spring Showers—The Coach* was included in the show. As the size of the print is quite small and it does not appear to have a border, it may have been a photogravure on India paper. *Photograms of the Year* (London, 1901), 93. He may have intended to include the large-format prints in a portfolio that was to have been titled *Fifty Prints of New York*, which was never published.[37]  [37]It was not until the 1920s or 1930s that he printed these images on gelatin silver papers. For further information about the portfolio *Fifty Prints of New York*, see Dorothy Norman, “Photograph of the Flatiron Building,” *Twice a Year* 14/15 (Fall/Winter 1946/1947), 188–189. He was simultaneously working on a second series about his daughter Kitty (born 1898) and others. One image from this series, a portrait of Kitty titled *Spring*, was also reproduced in the January 1902 number.[38]  [38]A selection from this series, titled “The Photographic Journal of a Baby,” was reproduced in *The Photographic Times* 34 (January 1902), unpaginated. 

Under mounting criticism that *Camera Notes* was becoming an elitist publication whose contributors were mostly from outside the club, Stieglitz published a valedictory in July 1902 to announce that “after the publication of this number, the management of *Camera Notes*, under whose auspices the magazine was founded and developed, finds it impossible to continue its labors.”[39]  [39]Stieglitz, “Valedictory,” *Camera Notes*6 (July 1902), 1. Almost immediately he began to plan a new publication that would owe allegiance “only to the interests of photography” yet would serve as the “mouthpiece of The Photo-Secession,” signifying his alliance with European groups that had revolted against the old guard. The magazine would begin as a quart­erly and, to ensure its independence, would be edited and published by Stieglitz. It was his aim to make the new journal, *Camera Work*, “the best and most sumptuous of photographic publications.” Before the first number appeared in January 1903, he had 627 subscribers.[40]  [40]Stieglitz et al., “An Apology,” *Camera Work* 1 (January 1903), 15–16. See also Stieglitz, *Camera Work Prospectus* (25 August 1902), reprinted in Christian A. Peterson, *Camera Work: Process & Image* (Minneapolis, 1985), 16.  

Advertisement for *The Work of Alfred Stieglitz*, from *Camera Work* 5 (January 1904), unpaginated, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Alfred Stieglitz Collection

Stieglitz took great care with the quality of the illustrations for each number of *Camera Work*. He carefully supervised all aspects of the printing, initially accomplished almost exclusively by the Photochrome Engraving Company, and in the column “Our Illustrations” he regu­larly praised the firm for the sympathetic manner with which the photographs were reproduced. The work of British photographers was printed by T. & R. Annan and Sons while the European work was printed by F. Bruckmann Verlag in Munich, now headed by his old friend and former collaborator from the Photochrome Engraving Company, Fritz Goetz. Stieglitz saw photogravures not as reproductions but rather as equivalents of the original prints, as they were made “directly from the original negatives and printed in the spirit of the original picture and retaining all its quality.”[41]  [41]See “Camera Work 1906: An Announcement,” *Camera Work* 11 (July 1905), unpaginated. *Camera Work* photogravures were included in the 1904 exhibition of the Société L’Effort in Brussels. In lieu of the Photo-Secession exhibit (which had been detained in shipping), the exhibition committee mounted, framed, and hung about thirty *Camera Work* photogravures to represent the United States. According to published reports, the American section was the success of the exhibition. It was not until after its close that it became known that the works consisted entirely of *Camera Work* photogravures.  To prove the point he issued a limited edition of a set of large-format photogravures in January 1904 that was intended for both individual sale or for sale as a group. The set, *The Work of Alfred Stieglitz*, consisted of five prints on thin Japanese paper in an edition of forty. Included was one image from his 1894 European trip (Key Set number 122); an enlarged version of the portrait of Kitty that had appeared earlier in *Camera Notes* (Key Set number 273); and three works from his continuing series of pictures of New York (see Key Set numbers 267 and 269).

Several times in the early numbers of *Camera Work*, Stieglitz had published individual works from his New York series (Key Set numbers 258, 266, 277, and 287), and in October 1905 he issued the first number devoted to his own work. The portfolio included early and more recent work printed in halftone (Key Set numbers 209 and 250) and photogravure (Key Set numbers 85, 274, 291, 293, 295, 296, 299, and 306). The halftones were treated in a similar manner to the photogravures; that is, placed singly on the page with no text. The original photographs were a carbon and a gum print and presumably reproduced more faithfully using the halftone process. The Manhattan Photogravure Company, headed by Stieglitz’s former partner Louis Schubart, printed the photogravures. The company had been founded the previous year after the photogravure division split from the Photochrome Engraving Company.[42]  [42]Advertisement for the Manhattan Photogravure Company (*Camera Work* 7 [July 1904], unpaginated).  (Stieglitz continued to employ the Photochrome Engraving Company for the halftone work.)

Stieglitz intended *Camera Work* to appeal to those who believed in photography as a medium of individual expression and also to showcase photography’s possibilities. The reproductions illustrated the variety of the mechanical printing processes available during the first quarter of the twentieth century. Edward Steichen’s Autochrome plates, featured in the April 1908 issue, were among the first published examples of the four-color halftone process using color transparencies.[43]  [43]The Lumière brothers had invented the Autochrome process, the first practical color process, the previous year.  Because of their irregular color structure, it was felt that Autochromes could not be reproduced. During his European travels in the summer of 1907, Stieglitz engaged F. Bruckmann Verlag to print the edition. Their early efforts proved unsatisfactory: “an unfortunate chain of circumstances” prevented the firm from keeping its promise to have the edition completed before December.[44]  [44]Stieglitz, “Our Illustrations,” *Camera Work* 21 (January 1908), 48.  Three sets of blocks were made before any acceptable results were achieved, and, in the end, only three of the four proposed images appeared in the April number.[45]  [45]Stieglitz, “Our Illustrations,” *Camera Work* 22 (April 1908), 24.  The reproductions of Heinrich Kühn (1866–1944) in a later number (January 1911) were also printed by Bruckmann, illustrating the “possibilities of the various photomechanical processes used today in reproducing photographs: photogravures, intaglio plates printed by hand; mezzotint photo­gravures, printed by steam; [and] duplex-halftones (two printings).”[46]  [46]Stieglitz, “Our Illustrations,” *Camera Work* 33 (January 1911), 71.  

Stieglitz made large-format photogravures of his work periodically, through 1913, that may have been intended for inclusion in his portfolio of New York images. Many of these large prints were included in important exhibitions, such as the 1910 “International Exhibition of Pictorial Photographs” at the Albright Art Gallery, and his one-man exhibition at the Photo-Secession Galleries in 1913. Small-format versions of some of these images were published in 1911 in the second issue of *Camera Work* devoted to his own work (Key Set numbers 93, 279, 331, 334, 341, and 344). Included in this group was *The Steerage* (Key Set number 310), another image that Stieglitz intended as a photogravure only. “I had in mind enlarging it for Camera Work, also enlarging it to eleven by fourteen and making a photogravure of it. . . . Two beautiful plates were made under my direction . . . proofs were pulled on papers that I had selected.”[47]  [47]Dorothy Norman, “Four Happenings: How ‘The Steerage’ Happened,” *Twice a Year* 8/9 (Spring/Summer–Fall/Winter 1942), 130. *The Steerage* was also featured in the September/October 1915 issue of the proto-dada magazine 291, edited by Marius de Zayas, Paul Haviland, and Agnes Ernst Meyer under Stieglitz’s sponsorship. Five hundred photogravures were printed on Japanese vellum and a deluxe edition printed on thin Japanese paper (Key Set number 313). The regular edition was offered for two dollars; the price of the deluxe edition was available on request. About one hundred people subscribed to the regular edition and eight to the deluxe. No other copies were sold. Stieglitz later claimed to have sold the remaining copies, including prints of *The Steerage*, to a rag picker during the war, for five dollars and eighty cents.[48]  [48]Dorothy Norman, “Four Happenings: The Magazine ‘291’ and ‘The Steerage’,” *Twice a Year* 8/9 (Spring/Summer–Fall/Winter 1942), 131–136.  

Paul Strand, *Alfred Stieglitz at His Press, New York*, c. 1920, printed early to mid-1980s, gelatin silver print, Philadelphia Museum of Art: The Paul Strand Collection, partial and promised gift of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest, 2009-160-43. © Aperture Foundation, Inc., Paul Strand Archive

At its inception *Camera Work* was issued in an edition of one thousand, but by the end of its run in June 1917 the size of the printing had fallen to less than five hundred, and the number of subscribers had dwindled to thirty-six. Stieglitz was driven “to despair” by the Manhattan Photogravure Company—“If it were not for the Bruckmann people in Munich and Craig Annan in Glasgow, I would have had to give up *Camera Work* long ago.”[49]  [49]Stieglitz to Anne Brigman, 24 June 1914, Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keeffe Archive, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven.  Unable to send work to his friend Fritz Goetz at the Bruckmann firm and with his income severely depleted with the onset of the war, *Camera Work* came to an end. He later destroyed many of the remaining issues—“I just couldn’t take care of them anymore.”[50]  [50]Stieglitz to Anne Brigman, 1 May 1930 (published in Weston Naef, *The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz: Fifty Pioneers of Modern Photography* [New York, 1978], 229).

The care that Stieglitz lavished on each original photograph extended to a reproduction made from that photograph, which he saw as a vehicle to disseminate not only his images but also photography’s artistic potential. “Many of my prints exist in one example only . . . there is no mechanicalization, but always photography,” he wrote in 1921. “My ideal is to achieve the ability to produce numberless prints from each negative, prints all significantly alive, yet indistinguishably alike, and to be able to circulate them at a price not higher than that of a popular magazine, or even a daily paper.”[51]  [51]Stieglitz, “A Statement,” *An Exhibition of Photography by Alfred Stieglitz* [exh. cat., Anderson Galleries] (New York, 1921). In later years, Stieglitz denied many requests from commercial publications for permission to reproduce his photographs. Enormous changes had occurred not only in photoengraving but in his own work as well—he increasingly used silver “postal card” stock after 1924—and he believed that he would have to get back into the business himself to find out how his photographs should be reproduced.[52]  [52]Modern gelatin silver prints are on paper that has been coated with a layer of white pigment mixed with gelatin. Because the silver metal rests on coated paper, the image is sharply defined and highly detailed, unlike platinum prints, which are softer in tone because the platinum metal is absorbed into the paper’s fibers. “The quality of touch in its deepest living sense is inherent in my photographs. When that sense of touch is lost the heartbeat of the photograph is extinct. In the reproduction it would become extinct—dead. My interest is in the living.”[53]  [53]Fred J. Ringle, ed., *America as Americans See It* (New York, 1932), 257.

Originally published 2002; minor adaptations have been made for the presentation of this text online.

**Footnotes**
        -   Theodore Dreiser, “A Master of Photography,”  Success Magazine  2 (10 June 1899), 471. 
        -   Dorothy Norman,  Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer  (New York, 1973), 26. 
        -   Stieglitz, “Correspondenz: zur Bildnung eines Amateur-Vereins,”  Der Amateur-Photograph  1:3 (March 1887), 48. 
        -   The reticulated pattern of the collotype can be seen under magnification, but to the naked eye the collotype appears to have a continuous tone, making it difficult to distinguish from a true photograph. By the 1880s the collotype displaced the Woodbury type, a photomechanical version of the carbon process patented by Walter Bentley Woodbury around 1865, as the highest-quality method of reproducing photographs. 
        -   Photogravures appear to be of a smooth, continuous tonal range, but under magnification an extremely fine grain is usually evident. Generally a plate mark (an indentation in the paper caused by the pressure of the press on the beveled edge of the plate) is visible, although the print can be trimmed so that the plate mark is removed. 
        -   P. H. Emerson,  Wild Life on a Tidal Water  (London, 1890), preface. Reprinted in Nancy Newhall,  P. H. Emerson: The Fight for Photography as a Fine Art  (New York, 1975), 124. 
        -   Dorothy Norman,  Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer  (New York, 1973), 33. 
        -   Kurtz employed Ernst Vogel (son of Hermann Wilhelm Vogel) to help him with his endeavor and by the summer of 1892 he obtained what he considered to be satisfactory results. He was able to fix an image on three separate printing plates, each screened to receive ink of a different color. Kurtz sent a large quantity of the color halftone reproductions to the elder Vogel in Germany, and they were bound in as color illustrations in the January 1893 number of  Photographische Mitteilungen . The publication caught the photographic world by surprise, and left  The Photographic Times  wondering “why Mr. Kurtz, of New York, should have felt called upon to announce his results first in a foreign publication.” Kurtz failed to patent his process. See William Welling,  Photography in America: The Formative Years, 1839–1900  (New York, 1978), 359. 
        -   Dorothy Norman,  Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer  (New York, 1973), 35. Stieglitz was in Vienna to gather information on European printing methods. He had discussed the possibility of starting up his own photoengraving firm in the fall of 1888 with W. H. Patten, who enthusiastically offered his services as manager of the enterprise “when you are ready to start it” (W. H. Patten to Stieglitz, 11 January 1889, Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keeffe Archive, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven). 
        -   Nancy Newhall, unpublished manuscript, 49, copy in NGA files. 
        -   Sue Davidson Lowe,  Alfred Stieglitz: A Memoir/Biography  (New York, 1983), 93. See also Geraldine Wojno Kiefer,  Alfred Stieglitz: Scientist, Photographer, and Avatar of Modernism, 1880–1913  (New York, 1991), 124. 
        -   Stieglitz, “Halftone Blocks with Woodcut Finish,”  The American Annual of Photography and Photographic Times Almanac for 1897  (New York, 1896), 221. 
        -   Advertisement for the Photochrome Engraving Company ( Camera Work  1 [January 1903], unpaginated). 
        -   F. C. Beach, “Editorial Comment,”  The American Amateur Photographer  5 (July 1893), 318. 
        -   Lago di Misurina, The Tyrol  appeared in December 1891. The following September,  A Bit of Lake George  was featured. The New York Photogravure Company also printed  On Lake Como  for the December 1893 issue of  The Photographic Times . 
        -   “Editorial Comment: Our Illustrations,”  The American Amateur Photographer  6 (January 1894), 25. 
        -   Beach was demoted to editor of the scientific and society news departments as the result of involving the magazine in a lawsuit. 
        -   Dorothy Norman,  Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer  (New York, 1973), 35. 
        -   Dorothy Norman,  Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer  (New York, 1973), 41. 
        -   Many of the Meinecke photogravures, including several of Stieglitz’s images, featured tiny pictures etched in their borders by an unknown member of the Meinecke firm. A landscape with windmills is etched in the border of  On the Dykes  (December 1895); a wooden shoe is on  Going to Prayers  (August 1895); and a row of cottages is on  Watching for the Return  (January 1896). Other prints have no such engravings. The Meinecke Company also printed most of the photogravure frontispieces for  The Photographic Times  after the summer of 1894, while the Photochrome Engraving Company printed the halftones. The Meinecke Company may have ceased production by January 1898, when  A Decorative Panel  appeared in  The Photographic Times  printed by William Sartain of Philadelphia. In June,  A Bit of Venice , printed in blue ink by the Photochrome Engraving Company, appeared; subsequently, all photogravures were printed by the Photochrome Engraving Company:  Early Morn  (August 1898);  A Venetian Well  (December 1899);  Snow—Foreground Study  (February 1900); and  Landing of the Boats  (December 1900). 
        -   Weston Naef,  The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz: Fifty Pioneers of Modern Photography  (New York, 1978), 30. 
        -   “India proof” (sometimes shortened to India or Indian) is the nineteenth century term for impressions printed this way; today they are referred to as  chine collé  (Chinese glue). See Hubert Herkomer,  Etching and Mezzotint Engraving: Lectures Delivered at Oxford  (London, 1892), 70. Japanese papers are generally made by hand using bark from three shrubs that grow only in Japan. Only a few of these papers were shipped to the United States; the best known is the vellum paper used in the printing of limited editions and deluxe editions. This paper is almost as tough as leather and has a beautiful mottled surface. Of the three principal mills making this paper the largest was the Insetsu Kioku (Imperial Mill) owned by the Japanese government and located in Oji, near Tokyo. In the mid-1870s the export of limited quantities of this paper was allowed and it was shipped first to Paris and later to London and New York. During the Sino-Japanese war of 1894 the government encouraged the production of the paper by a private mill in Shizuoka, a coastal town south of Tokyo. The Shizuoka Mill produced paper nearly the quality of that made at Oji, and it was sold in large quantities in the United States, Britain, and France. See Richard Tracy Stevens,  The Art of Paper Making in Japan  (New York, 1909), 1–5.   
        -   Camera Notes  1 (October 1897), 54. Stieglitz’s work was featured in the 1896 portfolio ( Watching for the Return ), and the 1897 portfolio ( Winter—Fifth Avenue ). 
        -   Stieglitz’s work was also included in the 1895 catalogue ( A Wet Day on the Boulevard ) and the 1896 catalogue ( Winter, Fifth Avenue ). 
        -   Stieglitz, “Reviews and Exchanges: ‘Nach der Natur’,”  Camera Notes  1 (January 1898), 85. 
        -   William M. Murray, “Reviews and Exchanges: ‘Picturesque Bits of New York, and Other Studies,’”  Camera Notes  1 (January 1898), 84–85. 
        -   Picturesque New York  was apparently an earlier title of the portfolio. See  Photo-Secession: Catalogue  6 [exh. cat., Lunn Gallery, Graphics International Ltd.] (Washington, 1977), 124–125. 
        -   Stieglitz, “Untitled,”  Camera Notes  1 (July 1897), 3. 
        -   Many of the works printed by Walter Colls had been included in the Salon portfolios and were therefore printed from the same plates. For example, Stieglitz’s  Scurrying Home , which appeared in the October 1899 number, had been featured in the 1895 portfolio. 
        -   Both Thomas and his son James Craig Annan had learned the photogravure process directly from Klíč in Vienna in 1883. Klíč sold the British rights to his process to the Annans. The Annans were responsible for a renewed interest in the work of David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson when they used their plates to make photogravures that appeared in  Camera Work  in 1905, 1909, and 1912. In a letter to Paul Strand, Stieglitz mentioned these photogravures, reminding Strand that they were “not reproductions, but photogravures, as permanent as a Dürer or Rembrandt etching” (13 December 1931, Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keeffe Archive, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven). 
        -   “‘Camera Notes,’ No. 1,”  Camera Notes  1 (October 1897), 53. 
        -   Halftone reproductions of these experimental processes appeared in April 1900 (oxalate and mercury prints); April and October 1901 (gum bichromate prints); and July 1902 (glycerine prints). 
        -   Joseph T. Keiley, “Untitled,”  Exhibition of Photographs by Alfred Stieglitz  [exh. cat., The Camera Club] (New York, 1899), unpaginated. 
        -   Joseph T. Keiley, “The Portfolio,”  Camera Notes  3 (October 1899), 86.  Reflections—Venice  was printed from the same plate that was used to print  A Bit of Venice , which appeared in  Camera Notes  (October 1897).  Reflections—Venice  was printed in blue/black ink;  A Bit of Venice  was printed in green/black ink. A second portfolio,  American Pictorial Photography, Series II , was issued in 1901. It did not include work by Stieglitz. 
        -   Dorothy Norman Papers, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson (unpublished). 
        -   An installation photograph of the 1901 London Photographic Salon exhibition reveals that  Spring Showers—The Coach  was included in the show. As the size of the print is quite small and it does not appear to have a border, it may have been a photogravure on India paper.  Photograms of the Year  (London, 1901), 93. 
        -   It was not until the 1920s or 1930s that he printed these images on gelatin silver papers. For further information about the portfolio  Fifty Prints of New York , see Dorothy Norman, “Photograph of the Flatiron Building,”  Twice a Year  14/15 (Fall/Winter 1946/1947), 188–189. 
        -   A selection from this series, titled “The Photographic Journal of a Baby,” was reproduced in  The Photographic Times  34 (January 1902), unpaginated. 
        -   Stieglitz, “Valedictory,”  Camera Notes  6 (July 1902), 1. 
        -   Stieglitz et al., “An Apology,”  Camera Work  1 (January 1903), 15–16. See also Stieglitz,  Camera Work Prospectus  (25 August 1902), reprinted in Christian A. Peterson,  Camera Work: Process & Image  (Minneapolis, 1985), 16.  
        -   See “Camera Work 1906: An Announcement,”  Camera Work  11 (July 1905), unpaginated.  Camera Work  photogravures were included in the 1904 exhibition of the Société L’Effort in Brussels. In lieu of the Photo-Secession exhibit (which had been detained in shipping), the exhibition committee mounted, framed, and hung about thirty  Camera Work  photogravures to represent the United States. According to published reports, the American section was the success of the exhibition. It was not until after its close that it became known that the works consisted entirely of  Camera Work  photogravures.  
        -   Advertisement for the Manhattan Photogravure Company ( Camera Work  7 [July 1904], unpaginated).  
        -   The Lumière brothers had invented the Autochrome process, the first practical color process, the previous year.  
        -   Stieglitz, “Our Illustrations,”  Camera Work  21 (January 1908), 48.  
        -   Stieglitz, “Our Illustrations,”  Camera Work  22 (April 1908), 24.  
        -   Stieglitz, “Our Illustrations,”  Camera Work  33 (January 1911), 71.  
        -   Dorothy Norman, “Four Happenings: How ‘The Steerage’ Happened,”  Twice a Year  8/9 (Spring/Summer–Fall/Winter 1942), 130.  
        -   Dorothy Norman, “Four Happenings: The Magazine ‘291’ and ‘The Steerage’,”  Twice a Year  8/9 (Spring/Summer–Fall/Winter 1942), 131–136.  
        -   Stieglitz to Anne Brigman, 24 June 1914, Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keeffe Archive, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven.  
        -   Stieglitz to Anne Brigman, 1 May 1930 (published in Weston Naef,  The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz: Fifty Pioneers of Modern Photography  [New York, 1978], 229).   
        -   Stieglitz, “A Statement,”  An Exhibition of Photography by Alfred Stieglitz  [exh. cat., Anderson Galleries] (New York, 1921). 
        -   Modern gelatin silver prints are on paper that has been coated with a layer of white pigment mixed with gelatin. Because the silver metal rests on coated paper, the image is sharply defined and highly detailed, unlike platinum prints, which are softer in tone because the platinum metal is absorbed into the paper’s fibers. 
        -   Fred J. Ringle, ed.,  America as Americans See It  (New York, 1932), 257. 

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