Product Description
Alfred Stieglitz, Old & New, New York, Photogravure from Camera Work 1910

ALFRED STIEGLITZ (1864-1946) USA
Old & New, New York 1910
Photogravure from Camera Work, Oak frame in the Arts & Crafts style
Signed: Alfred Stieglitz Old & New, New York, RMG #1081.30 (all in pencil on back)
Image: H: 8” x W: 6 1/4”
Page size: H: 11” x W: 7 7/8”
Framed: H: 15 ¼” x 11 ¼”
Price: $18,500
Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an acceptable art form alongside painting and sculpture. Many of his photographs are known for appearing like those other art forms, and he is also known for his marriage to painter Georgia O’Keeffe, most famous for her large-scale paintings of flowers.
Stieglitz was born the eldest of six children in Hoboken, New Jersey and raised in a brownstone on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. His father moved with his family to Germany in 1881. The next year, Stieglitz began studying mechanical engineering at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin and soon switched to photography. Traveling through the European countryside with his camera, he took many photographs of peasants working on the Dutch seacoast and undisturbed nature within Germany’s Black Forest and won prizes and attention throughout Europe in the 1880s.
From 1893 to 1896, Stieglitz was editor of American Amateur Photographer magazine; however, his editorial style proved to be brusque, autocratic and alienating to many subscribers. After being forced to resign, Stieglitz turned to the New York Camera Club (which was later renamed The Camera Club of New York and is in existence to this day) and retooled its newsletter into a serious art periodical known as Camera Notes. He announced that every published image would be a picture, not a photograph – a statement that allowed Stieglitz to determine which was which.
Big camera clubs that were the vogue in America at the time did not satisfy him; in 1902 he organized an invitation-only group, which he dubbed the Photo-Secession, to force the art world to recognize photography “as a distinctive medium of individual expression.” Among its members were Edward Steichen, Gertrude Käsebier, Clarence H. White and Alvin Langdon Coburn. Also in 1902 he ceased being editor of Camera Notes and in 1903 started a new independent journal of his own, Camera Work. Photo-Secession held its own exhibitions and its work was published Camera Work, which became the pre-eminent quarterly photographic journal of its day, although in later years its popularity declined markedly and it ceased publication in 1917.
From 1905 to 1917, Stieglitz managed the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession at 291 Fifth Avenue (which came to be known as 291). In 1910, Stieglitz was invited to organize a show at Buffalo’s Albright Art Gallery, which set attendance records. He was insistent that “photographs look like photographs,” so that the medium of photography would be considered with its own aesthetic credo and so separate photography from other fine arts such as painting, thus defining photography as a fine art for the first time. This approach by Stieglitz to photography gained the term “straight photography” in contrast to other forms of photography such as “pictorial photography” which practiced manipulation of the image pre and/or post exposure.
In the 1930s, Stieglitz presided over two non-commercial New York City galleries, The Intimate Gallery and An American Place. It was at An American Place that he formed his friendship with the great 20th century photographer Ansel Adams. Adams displayed many prints in Stieglitz’s gallery, corresponded with him and also photographed Stieglitz on occasion. Stieglitz was a great philanthropist and sympathizer with his fellow human beings. He once received a phone call on one of Adams’s visits. A man wanted to show Stieglitz some work. He invited him over, looked at the prints, looked at the man in a rather disheveled state of affairs and looked at the work again. He then offered to buy one of the paintings, wrote him a check for $150, gave him five dollars and told him to get something good to eat.
Alfred Stieglitz, Old & New, New York, Photogravure from Camera Work 1910
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HENRI MATISSE (1869-1954) France
“Pasiphae” 1944
Limited edition No. 48/250.
Published by Martin Fabiani, Paris.
Dimensions:
Book: H: 13 3/16” x W: 10 3/8”
Custom leather box: H: 15 1/4” x W: 11 11/16” x D: 2 5/8”
Custom cloth slipcase: H: 16 1/8” x W: 12 3/16” x D: 3”
Signed by Matisse on the justification page.
Matisse’s Pasiphae is a singularly thrilling work and the plates were destroyed after the printing of this edition.
“A Contemporary retelling of the story of Parisphae and the Minoan bull was the impetus for one of Matisse’s most intensive printmaking experiences. Working with linoleum, a fairly easy material to use, Matisse cut many blocks of each image to achieve the perfect flow of line and relationship of forms. Intent on matching the spirit and ambience of the classical tale, Matisse took as his model ancient Greek playground vase painting”.
S O G A T A New York, NY
“Harlem: Cabaret” 1931
Watercolor and pencil on paper
Signed: SOGATA, HARLEM · 31(painted, lower right corner of image); HARLEM: CABARET. (in pencil beneath image on left)
For contextual history and similar art see: Rhapsodies in black : art of the Harlem Renaissance,(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Harlem Renaissance Artists. Jordan, Denise (Chicago: Heinemann Library, 2003).
Image H: 11″ x W: 7 3/4″
Frame H: 19 1/4” x W: 16”
*This SOGATA New York Watercolor and pencil on paper has been gifted to The Wolfsonian – FIU, Miami Beach, FL.
PAUL FLATO (1900-1999)
Paul Flato, signed, Important Necessaire in the shape of a Trompe L’oeil black suede and red leather “Wrapped Package” containing silver, gold and enamel “Envelopes / Packages” Made Expressly for Elizabeth Arden, postmarked and dated New York, Dec. 31st, 1938
Sterling silver and 14K gold details with black and various colored champlevé enamels as trompe l’oeil mailed package/envelopes addressed to Elizabeth Arden and postmarked New York Dec. 31st, 1938 in the forms of a cigarette case, powder compact, watch and lipstick case with an additional red leather change purse and comb all within a black suede with red leather interior “wrapped package” envelope case detailed with red enamel seals and gold twisted cording
Marks: FLATO (4x), Sterling, 14K, Pat. Pending (2x), Elizabeth Arden, New York
Dec. 31st, 1938 (script signature and date in champlevé enamel, four pieces)
Provenance: Elizabeth Arden (born Florence Nightingale Graham 1884-1966), Private Collection London, Private Collection New York
For more information about Flato and his close friendship with Elizabeth Arden see: Paul Flato Jeweler to the Stars, Elizabeth Irvine Bray (Antique Collectors’ Club Ltd. Woodbridge, Suffolk UK, 2010) pp. 40,79,88 and 142 (for related gold stamped and addressed envelope cases)
Black suede and red leather case: H: 4 ¼”x W: 7 ¼” x D: 2”
Paul Flato was one of the most successful jewelry designers of the 1930’s and 40’s and in his heyday was as famous as Tiffany & Co. and Harry Winston! Flato made custom jewelry for Doris Duke, Millicent Rogers and Linda and Cole Porter. However, he was particularly well known and liked in Hollywood and was the favored jeweler to stars such as Rita Hayworth, Katherine Hepburn and Greta Garbo who all wore his jewels both on and off the movie sets. In fact, he designed the jewelry for six films including “Holiday” starring Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn in 1938. Flato designed jewels for and was a close friend of the legendary cosmetics tycoon, Elizabeth Arden and together they shared a particular bond and love of promotion, politics and racehorses.
“Around 1940, Flato had a very large pink diamond set in a ring, in a very creative and ingenious maneuver, he contacted Elizabeth Arden’s public relations department. In a memo entitled “Arden Plan for Publicity on the Pink Diamond,” Flato presented ideas for a dual promotion of Arden and Flato: Mr. Flato has available a large pink diamond, weight about 25-35 carats. He has shown it along with other jewelry at fashion shows but has never promoted it. The ring is still available. Elizabeth Arden, his close personal friend and a good customer, has been studying jewels in order to develop new nail-polish and make-up. I was told that she was creating a line of make-up linked to colored stones…. We took up with Miss Wobber her publicity chief the idea of naming her natural or rose nail-polish “PINK DIAMOND” and we would co-operate on publicity… Miss Arden likes the idea so well she wants to do a new nail-polish and lipstick called “PINK DIAMOND.”
ELIZABETH ARDEN (1884-1966)
Florence Nightingale Graham, who adopted the business name Elizabeth Arden was a Canadian born American entrepreneur who built an enormously successful cosmetics empire in the US and at the peak of her career was one of the wealthiest women in the world! Early in her life, she briefly worked as a bookkeeper for the E.R. Squibb Pharmaceuticals Company and began spending many hours in their laboratory learning about skincare. She went on to work as a beauty culturist and in 1912 traveled to France to learn beauty and facial massage techniques. Arden revolutionized cosmetics, bringing a scientific approach to her make-up and skin-care formulations. She innovatively brought modern eye makeup to North America, introduced the concept of the “makeover” in her salons where she created foundations that matched a person’s skin tone creating a “total look” and was the first to make a cosmetics commercial shown in movie houses. In the early 1940’s, she also started a fashion business with Charles James and Oscar de la Renta on staff. During WWII, Arden addressed the needs of women entering the workforce and created a lipstick called Montezuma Red for the women in the armed forces that would match the red on their uniforms. Elizabeth Arden began expanding her international salon operations as early as 1915 and eventually opened salons in virtually all the major cities in the world. By the end of the 1930’s, it was said that “There are only three American names that are known in every single corner of the globe: Singer sewing machines, Coca Cola, and Elizabeth Arden.” A fact proved by Heinrich Harrer in his book “Seven Years in Tibet,” where he stated that it’s possible to buy Arden products —- even in Tibet. From the 1930’s through the 1960’s, Elizabeth Arden was considered the most upscale cosmetic brand with celebrated clientele that included Queen Elizabeth, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Wallis Simpson, Jacqueline Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe.
TIM GIDAL (Ignaz Nachum Gidalewitsch) (1909-1996) USA
Self-portrait 1930
Signed: Tim Gidal, self portrait 1930, photograph printed by photographer TG (script in ink on back)
H: 17 7/8” x W: 12 1/16” (framed)
German-born Israeli photojournalist and writer. Gidal studied law, history and art history in Munich and Berlin, and started photography as a Zionist student. His first published pictures appeared in the Münchener illustrierte Presse in 1929. After emigrating in 1933 he lived in Switzerland (where he wrote a doctoral dissertation on photojournalism), the Middle East, and India, contributing to numerous publications. Between 1938 and 1940 he worked for Picture Post, and 1942-5 for the British army magazine Parade. After moving to the USA in 1947 he was an editorial consultant for Life. He later held academic posts in America and Israel. His many books include Modern Photojournalism: Origin and Evolution 1910-1933 (1973).
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