The Last Days of 291, 1917

Key Set Entry

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Remarks

All the works depicted here are unidentified.

On 31 May 1917 Stieglitz wrote O’Keeffe, “I have decided to rip 291 to pieces after all—I can’t bear to think that its walls which held your drawings & the children’s should be in charge of any one else but myself. . . . No the walls must come down—& very soon—in a few days.—So that I am sure they’re down.—Others should move in & build anew.” (As quoted in Sarah Greenough and Juan Hamilton, Alfred Stieglitz: Photographs & Writings [Washington, 1983], 202).

Other Collections

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

Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1967-285-48 [gelatin silver] (inscribed: The Last Days of “291” (1917) / Stieglitz / with permission / An American Place)

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:

1921, New York (no. 56, as The Last Show, 1917)

Lifetime Publications

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

Waldo Frank et al., America & Alfred Stieglitz (New York, 1934): pl. 14e (ill., Last Days of “291,” 1917)

Inscription

by later hand, center verso, in graphite: B / B 133; on mount, lower left verso: 90 C

by Doris Bry, on mount, lower left, in graphite: Treated by Steichen - 6/50

Provenance

Georgia O'Keeffe; gift to NGA, 1949.

Exhibition History

1983

Photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, February 3–May 8, 1983; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, June 17–August 14, 1983; The Art Institute of Chicago, October 18, 1983–January 3, 1984

1991

Group Portrait: The First American Avant-Garde, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, May 10–October 27, 1991

Bibliography

1983

Greenough, Sarah, and Juan Hamilton. Alfred Stieglitz: Photographs and Writings. Washington, 1983: no. 63, pl. 26.

2002

Greenough, Sarah. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs. Washington, 2002: vol. 1, cat. 465.

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