Modern Art in America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries

This volume on Alfred Stieglitz's photographs and his circle of artists provides a comprehensive overview of the complex inter-relationship between all of his activities as a photographer, publisher and gallery director. The book is divided into two sections, the first focuses on Stieglitz's introduction of European modernism to America and the second on his role in forming a distinctly American form of modernism during the 1920s. The book features 190 colour and 160 black-and-white reproductions of work from seminal figures such as Brancusi, Cezanne, Matisse, Picabia, Picasso, Demuth, Dove, Hartley, Georgia O'Keeffe, Paul Strand and Stieglitz himself, accompanied by essays from leading scholars.

Alfred Stieglitz had a double impact on the evolution of modern art in America. As an audacious and dedicated photographer, he fought for photography's acceptance as an art form. As a gallery owner, he introduced the American public to the greatest artists of the period: Rodin, Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso, Brancusi, Braque, and Duchamp owed their first exhibitions in America to Stieglitz's vision and energy. The large and elegant Modern Art and America, organized by Sarah Greenough, curator of photography at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, presents 360 works by artists associated with Stieglitz's galleries, including the photographer himself. The first half of the book describes the years 1905 to 1917, when Stieglitz used his Gallery 291 as an intellectual forum and a place to exhibit the work of mostly European artists. The second covers 1921 to 1946, when he focused on promoting American artists such as John Marin, Arthur Dove, Paul Strand, and Stieglitz's partner, Georgia O'Keeffe. In an imaginative re-creation of history, the editors have gone to great lengths to locate and illustrate the actual paintings, photos, and sculptures that Stieglitz exhibited. Essays by curators at the National Gallery and others describe his relationships with individual artists, successfully conveying the intellectual ferment that he inspired. Modern Art and America, printed in Italy to the highest quality standards, is an exemplary combination of scholarship and art book, a pleasure both to look at and to read. --John Stevenson