The New York herald., 1921-02-13

| negative. prints all significantly alive,
yet indistinguishably alike. and to be
able to circulate them at, a price not
higher than that of q popular magazine,
or even a daily paper To gain that
| ability there has been no choice but to
follow the road have chosen.
Il was born in Hoboken. I am an
American. Photography is my passion.
To search for truth my obsession."
| BY way of postscript he added:
please Note-In the above statement
the following. fast becoming obsolete
terms do not appear: Art. science, beau
ty, religion. every ism, abstraction. form,
Elasticity, objectivity. subjectivity. old
masters, modern art, psychoanalysis. ses-
thetics, pictorial, photography, de-
mocracy, cezanne, '291,' prohibition.
THE term Truth did creep in, but may
be kicked out by any one"
Just why prohibition" should be re-
garded as an obsolete word Is not quite
clear. find it an invaluable term
myself in describing certain present day
effects, also also / shall find 1t difficult
to say anything about the photographs
without using the word art" The
most astonishing of them. my favorite
almost think, represents typical.
bourgeois American sitting room. The
room must have been thoroughly COM
Portable and honey" but there Is
scarcely one of the far too numerous
pieces of furniture but would require
apologies from the member of the fam
lily that pretended to aesthetic sensi-
bilities In other words, II is q hum
drum example of our civil war style OF
decoration. Nevertheless. the photo
graph Is beautiful. The play of the
late afternoon shadows among the fur
nishings is delightful and takes hold of
ones fancy. The picture would not
tire one quickly. I think although the
room from which 1t was taken might
have been a bore. Now the camera it
self is a mere machine and Is incapable
Of seeing beauties in a stupid thing. In
using the machine, Alfred. think. must
have searched. In other words. he ex-
pressed himself stylistically and be-
came an artist.
admit that myself drew away from
photography about the time of the So
called "art photography came in. L
could not stand photography that,
through tricky manipulation OF the
plates, aped painting. To me photog-
raphy was one thing and painting an
other, and the foggy, blurred enlarge
ments that to many Of our experimenters
seemed artistic were to me merely
VulBdT. L sHrlnh lIoii piiolVBiaphS ehoS
are too large anyway, just as l shrink
from Brangwynnian etchings. There
was a time when our working classes"
(Stiegltz will say that term is obsolete
also) INDUCED themselves IN pathetic
fancy for crayon cnlargements of photos
of their dead. They we're rather hor-
rible, but only trlfle more 80 than the
gaudy silver framed affairs that now
adorn the homes Of our rich. l like
straight photography and thought the
profession had severed itself from art
rather early In the game-that Is to say.
shortly after the daguerreotypes were
relinquished But Alfred, Stiglltz re.
establishes the link. He Is a photo
grapher. pure though not simple.
His prints include landscapes and
city views. still life. portraits and
studies from the nude. and in each OF
these divisions memorable work has
been accomplished. Stieglitz's reputa-
tion IL already so secure that II goes
without saying that all who are in
terested in photography will see this ex-
hibition. That II viii have marked re-
suits upon the other members of the
profession is certain.