The Flatiron, 1903

Key Set Entry

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Remarks

Late in his life Stieglitz recalled: “One day there was a great snow storm. The Flat-Iron Building had been erected on 23rd Street, at the junction of Fifth Avenue and Broadway. I stood spellbound as I saw that building in that storm. I had watched the building in the course of its erection, but somehow it had never occurred to me to photograph it in the stages of its evolution. But that particular snowy day, with the trees of Madison Square all covered with snow, fresh snow, I suddenly saw the Flat-Iron Building as I had never seen it before. It looked, from where I stood, as if it were moving toward me like the bow of a monster ocean steamer, a picture of the new America which was in the making. So day after day for several days, while the snow was still covering Madison Square Park, I made snapshots of the Flat-Iron Building.

“One of these pictures I enlarged. That is, I had a photogravure made from the original negative, in fact, two photogravures, different sizes, both enlargements of the original negative, and proof pulled under my direct supervision. One enlargement was to be inserted into Camera Work; the other one was larger, about 11 × 14. This larger photogravure was one of a series of large prints I had in mind to be made for a portfolio, to be called Fifty Prints of New York. This series that I had in mind was never completed.”

As recorded by Dorothy Norman in “Alfred Stieglitz: Six Happenings. I: Photograph the Flat-Iron Building—1902–1903,” Twice a Year 14–15 (1946–1947), 188–189.

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:

1904, Washington (no. 131, as The Flatiron, N.Y.)
1904, Pittsburgh (no. 222, as The Flatiron, New York)
1904, Paris (no. 669, as The “Flat Iron,” platinum)
1904, London (no. 165, as The Flat-iron)
1910, Buffalo (no. 432, as The Flatiron, New York, 1902–1910, photogravure)
1913, New York (no. 14, as The Flatiron, 1902)
1924, New York (no. 59, as The Flatiron Building, 1901)
1932, New York (no. 41, as The Flatiron, 1901)
1944, Philadelphia (no. 16, as The Flatiron, 1902)

Lifetime Publications

A reproduction of this work appeared in the following publication(s) during Alfred Stieglitz’s lifetime:

Camera Work 4 (October 1903): pl. 1 (ill., The “Flat-iron”)

Joseph Keiley, “American Pictorial Photographers. Alfred Stieglitz,” Photography 17 (20 February 1904): 151 (ill., The Flat Iron)

Note

Image courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Provenance

Georgia O'Keeffe; gift to NGA, 1949.

Exhibition History

1992

Stieglitz in the Darkroom, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, October 4, 1992–February 14, 1993

Bibliography

2002

Greenough, Sarah. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs. Washington, 2002: vol. 1, cat. 287.

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