Alfred Stieglitz

mounted, signed, titled, dated, annotated 'With permission An American Place' and 'Kindly return to' in pencil and with the photographer's '509 Madison Avenue, New York, N. Y.' stamp and reduction notations in pencil on the mount, numerical and reduction notations in pencil and 'Popular Photography Roto Page' and use date stamps on the reverse, 1919, printed no later than 1946

The photographer to his niece Georgia Engelhard

Greenough 604

Georgia Engelhard, 'The Face of Alfred Stieglitz,' Popular Photography, September 1946, Vol. 19, No. 3, p. 53 (this print)

'Watch Your Step!,' New York Dada, April 1921

Waldo Frank, et al., America and Alfred Stieglitz: A Collective Portrait (New York, 1934), pl. 29B

'Speaking of Pictures . . . These are by one of Photography's Pioneers,' LIFE, 5 April 1943, Vol. 14, No. 14, p. 7

Doris Bry, Alfred Stieglitz (National Gallery of Art, 1958), pl. 10

Doris Bry, Alfred Stieglitz: Photographer (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1965), pl. 29

Dorothy Norman, Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer (New York, 1973), p. 129

In Focus: Alfred Stieglitz (J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995), cover and pl. 18

Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries (National Gallery of Art, 2001), no. 99

This photograph is on paper with slightly warm tones and a glossy surface. The surface shows some of the faint inconsistences characteristic of very glossy photographs, including pitting and very light scuffs, all of which can only be seen when the print is examined closely in raking light. There is a slightly mottled quality to the print's tonality in the mid-tones, particularly to the right of the shoe. There is a chip in the emulsion at the lower left edge of the print. The mount is thin cream-colored board that shows some soiling from handling on the front and reverse. There are pinholes in each of the mount's four corners. 'Watch Your Step!,' New York Dada, April 1921
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Like the photographs in Lots 79 and 81, this photograph comes from the collection of the photographer’s niece, Georgia Engelhard.  Fully captioned, signed, and annotated, these prints were used by Engelhard to illustrate her memoir of her uncle in Popular Photography magazine, September 1946, shortly after his death. 

Dorothy True, with its deliberate layering of two images, is a standout in Stieglitz’s career, which is otherwise characterized by a rigorously straightforward approach to the medium.  In Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set, Sarah Greenough locates 7 other prints of this image, all in institutional collections.