Experiment 27, 1907, printed 1909

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Remarks

In December 1907 Stieglitz and Clarence H. White collaborated on a series of portraits of Mabel Cramer and another woman identified only as Miss Thompson. Four of the sixteen images known were reproduced in Camera Work (see Weston Naef, The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz, New York, 1978, 490–493, nos. 561–580).

“A little over two years ago, Alfred Stieglitz and Clarence H. White, in consequence of various lively discussions with some painters about portrait painting and the impossibility of the camera to do certain things, began a series of experiments to demonstrate the pliability of straight photography as a medium for portraiture and figure work and so disprove the painters’ contentions. These experiments were to serve at the same time as some technical tests of a certain brand of plates and a new lens. Although in the course of two weeks a series of sixty negatives was made, circumstances made it impossible to produce more than a few finished prints. It is hoped to complete the experiment in the near future. . . . The negative of the ‘Torso,’ it might be added, was made by gaslight” (“Our Illustrations,” Camera Work 27 [July 1909], 47).

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 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 33.43.393 [platinum]

Other Collections

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

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art [platinum]

Lifetime Publications

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

Camera Work 27 (July 1909): pl. 1 (ill., Experiment 27)

Note

Image courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Provenance

Georgia O'Keeffe; gift to NGA, 1949.

Bibliography

2002

Greenough, Sarah. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs. Washington, 2002: vol. 1, cat. 324.

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