In Focus: Alfred Stieglitz : Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum

Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Photography & Video

In Focus: Alfred Stieglitz : Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum Details

From Booklist It's hard to imagine what another book about Stieglitz, the most written-about figure in American photography, could contribute. Well, this one offers some unfamiliar images and, more notably, an essay arguing that Stieglitz did his best work late in life at his family retreat at Lake George, New York. Photographic curator and historian John Szarkowski is responsible for the latter, which advances a Stieglitz who in the late work turned from public themes and public life to personal symbols (clouds and dying poplar trees) and to sweetly human descriptions of friends, young women, and, of course, his fascinating wife, Georgia O'Keeffe. Whether these late pictures are Stieglitz's best is really still an open question. Contradicting the self-mythologizing of his earlier work, however, these 93 photographs, full of a heartfelt directness, show him to be a man like other men, who appreciated beauty, the weather, family, friends, and home. Gretchen Garner Read more

Reviews

For such a giant in the world of photography, it is surprising how little is in print about Steiglitz. The In Focus book, as with others in the series, delivers a consise background for each photo, presented in more or less chronological order. The emphasis on his relationship with O'Keefe overshadows his work to some degree, which is unfortunate because he was a mover and shaker before the two met. In the end, though, I have two real complaints: 1) The print quality is mediocre, at best (Steiglitz is spinning in his grave), and 2) the physical size of the book is too small. Given the retail price, it does not compete well with books from Tachen.

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