From the Back Window -- "291" -- N.Y., Summer 1914

Alfred Stieglitz is regarded as the single most influential figure in the development of early 20th-century American photography. He guided the remarkable transition from Pictorialism to modernism and made New York City an important center for both. As editor/publisher of Camera Notes, Camera Work and director of the Photo-Secession Gallery (later renamed '291'), Stieglitz was at the forefront of the battle to have photography accepted on equal terms with painting and he understood the importance of developing a distinctly 'American' style. It was with this in mind that Stieglitz made New York the subject of so many of his photographs, beginning as early as the 1890s. By 1910 Stieglitz was concentrating on subjects like the new Flatiron Building, train terminals, ferries and construction sites -- all, however, still in the soft-focus of Pictorialism.
This print is an important example of how Stieglitz's style changed in a four-year period that included the Armory Show. After this ground-breaking exhibition, which included Duchamp's painting, Nude Descending a Staircase, Stieglitz abandoned Pictorialism. From the Back Window can be regarded as a transitional work -- an incorporation of what he learned from the show into his own work. Stieglitz was searching for basic forms in this back-alley view and trying to simplify and abstract them. His series of photographs from '291' are among his most prized, each a formal and objective study in delineating shapes and expressing structure.
This print is charmingly inscribed to Marie Rapp, a secretary at '291', whom Stieglitz photographed on many occasions.