Asked by cbxf
How did Stieglitz help to change how photography was viewed by society?
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GPT-5 mini
Alfred Stieglitz helped transform photography from a technical craft or means of reproduction into a legitimate fine art by changing how people made, published, exhibited, and talked about photographs. He did this in several concrete ways:
- Institutional leadership: He founded the Photo-Secession (1902) to promote photographic art and to give photographers a professional identity as artists.
- Publishing: As editor and publisher of Camera Work (1903–1917) he printed high-quality photogravures, critical essays, and portfolios that showed photography could have the same intellectual and aesthetic seriousness as painting or sculpture.
- Exhibition practice: He ran influential galleries (notably “291”) where he mounted carefully curated shows of photography alongside modern European painting and sculpture, putting photographs on equal footing with other arts.
- Artistic advocacy: Through lectures, essays, and editorial notes he argued that photographs were the photographer’s personal expression, not mere mechanical records. He championed both pictorialist aesthetics and, later, “straight” modernist photography (e.g., his own The Steerage, Paul Strand), expanding the idea of what photographic art could be.
- Raising standards: He emphasized craftsmanship—mastery of printing, composition and tonal range—and presented photographs as singular art objects rather than anonymous reproductions.
- Mentorship and promotion: He supported and promoted younger photographers and modern artists, shaping taste and building a market and institutional acceptance for photography.
The result was a major shift in public and critical opinion: by the mid-20th century photography was commonly accepted and collected as a fine art, a change to which Stieglitz’s leadership, publications, exhibitions, and writing made a decisive contribution.
- Institutional leadership: He founded the Photo-Secession (1902) to promote photographic art and to give photographers a professional identity as artists.
- Publishing: As editor and publisher of Camera Work (1903–1917) he printed high-quality photogravures, critical essays, and portfolios that showed photography could have the same intellectual and aesthetic seriousness as painting or sculpture.
- Exhibition practice: He ran influential galleries (notably “291”) where he mounted carefully curated shows of photography alongside modern European painting and sculpture, putting photographs on equal footing with other arts.
- Artistic advocacy: Through lectures, essays, and editorial notes he argued that photographs were the photographer’s personal expression, not mere mechanical records. He championed both pictorialist aesthetics and, later, “straight” modernist photography (e.g., his own The Steerage, Paul Strand), expanding the idea of what photographic art could be.
- Raising standards: He emphasized craftsmanship—mastery of printing, composition and tonal range—and presented photographs as singular art objects rather than anonymous reproductions.
- Mentorship and promotion: He supported and promoted younger photographers and modern artists, shaping taste and building a market and institutional acceptance for photography.
The result was a major shift in public and critical opinion: by the mid-20th century photography was commonly accepted and collected as a fine art, a change to which Stieglitz’s leadership, publications, exhibitions, and writing made a decisive contribution.
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