Gable and Apples, 1922

Key Set Entry

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Remarks

Stieglitz wrote to Hart Crane about this photograph several times during the summer of 1923: “The Moment before the apples and gable will remain with me for all time.—There was never truer seeing. —” (16 April 1923). “I try to fathom the real significance of that extraordinary moment at the Exhibition—Gable & Apple. This is not an apple-year—I’d like to try the motif again. The Gable is there.—Ready —” (25 June 1923). “I’m endeavoring to focus my vision—Last year as I sat in the chair the appletrees were laden with apples—I watched those apples daily many hours for several months—& finally the apple & gable resulted—& the other ‘Apple and Rain Drop’—the two results I like. I had hoped to carry the ‘Apple and Rain Drop’ further—but the trees are appleless this year —” (27 July 1923, all letters YCAL).

Stieglitz Collections

A corresponding print was given to the following institution(s) by Alfred Stieglitz during his lifetime, or was received or acquired from the estate:

The Art Institute of Chicago, 1949.728

George Eastman Museum, Rochester, 74:0052:0069

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 92.1943.1

Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1949-18-56

Other Collections

A print corresponding with this photograph can also be found in the following collection(s):

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1987.1100.103

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 2009.37.17

Location unknown (inscribed: Lake George, 1920)

Lifetime Exhibitions

A print from the same negative—perhaps a photograph from the Gallery’s collection—appeared in the following exhibition(s) during Alfred Stieglitz’s lifetime:

1923, New York (nos. 98, as Gable and Apples, 1922)

Inscription

by Alfred Stieglitz, on mount, upper left verso, in graphite: Hart Crane's favorite / in Exhibition 1923

by later hands, on mount, upper left verso, in graphite, in square: 1; lower right verso: 012

Provenance

Georgia O'Keeffe; gift to NGA, 1949.

Exhibition History

1958

Photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, March 16–April 27, 1958

Bibliography

1981

Greenough, Sarah. "From the American Earth: Alfred Stieglitz's Photographs of Apples." Art Journal 41, no. 1 (1981), 53 and cover.

2002

Greenough, Sarah. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs. Washington, 2002: vol. 1, cat. 777.

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