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Photo-Secession

Group of mainly American Pictorialist photographers founded by ALFRED STIEGLITZ in New York in 1902, with the aim of advancing photography as a fine art. Stieglitz, who chose the organization's name partly to reflect the Modernism of European artistic Secession movements, remained its guiding spirit. Other leading members included Alvin Langdon Coburn, Gertrude K?sebier, Edward Steichen and Clarence H. White. The Secession also exhibited and published work by Europeans, for example Robert Demachy, Frederick H. Evans, Heinrich K?hn and Baron Adolf de Meyer, who shared the Americans' attitude that photography was a valid medium of artistic expression (see PICTORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY).

See the Abbreviations for further details.



 
 

Group of U.S. photographers influenced by the Pictorialist movement. Founded in 1902 by Alfred Stieglitz, the Photo-Secession sought recognition of photography as an art to be judged on its own terms. It was akin to such groups as the Linked Ring in London, and its name reflected that of the Sezession movement in Austria and Germany. The group regularly showed its work at the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, also known as "291" (its address on Fifth Avenue in New York City), a gallery run by Stieglitz. While Stieglitz did not believe in retouching or manipulating negatives or prints, others of the group, such as Edward Steichen, were adherents of the impressionistic soft-focus school and the new techniques. By 1910 many members of the group left due to different aesthetic visions. The record of the Photo-Secession is contained in the quarterly Camera Work (1903 – 17).

For more information on Photo-Secession, visit Britannica.com.

 
Photography Encyclopedia: Photo-Secession

Founded by the brilliant but domineering Alfred Stieglitz in 1902, the Photo-Secession is perhaps unique in the history of world arts organizations for being both apparently open and uncompromisingly exclusive in its structure and stated aims. Stieglitz had fallen out with the Camera Club of New York, whose journal, Camera Notes, he had created and edited. He and his followers had been increasingly influenced by forward-looking photographic organizations abroad such as the Linked Ring Brotherhood in England and secessionist movements in Austria and Germany. These groups sought to emancipate themselves from the constraints of existing photographic organizations that, they felt, inhibited individual expression and the recognition of photography as a fine art on a par with painting and sculpture. Key early figures in the Photo-Secession were Gertrude Käsebier, Clarence H. White, Joseph T. Keiley (1869-1914), Edward Steichen, Frank Eugene, and Alvin Langdon Coburn. The full founding governing council consisted of thirteen ‘founders’, selected from a pool of elected ‘fellows’. The ranks of lesser, associate members, initially numbering 28, would soon swell to well over 100.

In 1903 Stieglitz brought forth the first issue of Camera Work, in which the intentions of the Photo-Secession were more clearly articulated. The organization mounted significant shows of photography, most notably the International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography in Buffalo in 1910. But Stieglitz's autocratic ways and growing interest in the exhibiting of modern art generally—not just photography—began to alienate some of his followers. Although never formally disbanded, the Photo-Secession effectively ended with the closing of Stieglitz's Gallery 291 and the cessation of Camera Work in 1917.

— Tim Troy

Bibliography

  • Doty, R., Photo-Secession: Stieglitz and the Fine-Art Movement in Photography (1960; repr. 1978).
  • Homer, W. I., Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession (1983)
 
Wikipedia: Photo-Secession

The 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 became the publisher of the journal, Camera Work. The group also operated the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession.

The pictorialist style argued that art photography needed to emulate the painting and etching of the time. Pictorialist images were black & white or sepia-toned. Among the methods used were soft focus, special filters and lens coatings, heavy manipulation in the darkroom, and exotic printing processes.

Photo-secessionists thought that the strength of a medium was found in its purity, hence straight photography. Images were not manipulated in the darkroom, aside from cropping. Content of the images often referred to previous work done by other artists, especially Greek and Roman art. Images often contained stylistic consistency such as dramatic lighting, perspective, geometric, monochrome/black and white, and high contrast.


 
 

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Art Encyclopedia. The Concise Grove Dictionary of Art. Copyright © 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Photography Encyclopedia. The Oxford Companion to the Photograph. Copyright © 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Photo-Secession" Read more

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