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Lot Essay
I wanted to photograph clouds to find out what I learned in forty years about photography. Through clouds to put down my philosophy of life. —Alfred Stieglitz
The collective title of the series work from which this lot (and Lot 46) belong, ‘Equivalents’, suggests the artist’s intention that they should be read not as quasi-scientific documents of the phenomena of cloud formations, but as sources of inspiration to take the viewer beyond the literal to the lyrical, poetic, and inspirational potential of these intangible, evanescent subjects. It was the development of panchromatic film that enabled Stieglitz to capture the necessary tonal range and contrasts to match the images in his mind’s eye. His first successes in 1923 were for him a visual equivalent of music, as suggested by the initial series titles, ‘Clouds in Ten Movements’ and ‘Songs of the Sky’, before he settled on ‘Equivalents’ for the cloud study experiments that he pursued till 1934.
The collective title of the series work from which this lot (and Lot 46) belong, ‘Equivalents’, suggests the artist’s intention that they should be read not as quasi-scientific documents of the phenomena of cloud formations, but as sources of inspiration to take the viewer beyond the literal to the lyrical, poetic, and inspirational potential of these intangible, evanescent subjects. It was the development of panchromatic film that enabled Stieglitz to capture the necessary tonal range and contrasts to match the images in his mind’s eye. His first successes in 1923 were for him a visual equivalent of music, as suggested by the initial series titles, ‘Clouds in Ten Movements’ and ‘Songs of the Sky’, before he settled on ‘Equivalents’ for the cloud study experiments that he pursued till 1934.