I geek out over photography books as much as I geek out over gear. What better way to learn and be inspired than by appreciating the work of great photographers and other visual artists? Alfred Stieglitz knew this. Not only was he a pioneering photographer, himself, but he shared with the world his massive collection of other photographers' work.
Alfred Stieglitz was an important photographer, curator, and publisher. He championed the acceptance of photography as an art form, a movement know as the Photo-Secession. His gallery at 291 5th ave. in Manhattan (named "The Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession" and later simply known as "291" displayed the works of early 20th century photography pioneers. The 291 gallery coincided roughly with Stieglitz's magazine known as "Camera Work" which ran quarterly from 1903 to 1917. Each edition was an extravagant production on fine paper and featuring some of the most beautiful photographs known.
The aesthetic of the Photo-Secession period was "pictoralism", which held that instead of photography being a mere scientific process of recording reality, the photographer, with a little creative experimenting with focus and darkroom chemicals, could produce true works of art.
This little book has 545 glorious pages with every photograph that was featured in Camera Work. It is a beautiful collection of pictoralist photography. In it you see gauzy, romantic portraiture by Edward Stiechen, nymphs frolicking in wispy landscapes by Alice Boughton, Stieglitz's own smoke and soot filled turn of the century urban landscapes, and so much more. The book, like the life of the magazine and of 291, ends as Stieglitz gets bored with pictoralism, and shows us the sharp, contrast-y modernism of Paul Strand, This is a must-have for the library of any fan of photography.
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