Barnside
1923
Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
sheet (trimmed to image): 9.3 × 11.8 cm (3 11/16 × 4 5/8 in.) mount: 33.1 × 27.3 cm (13 1/16 × 10 3/4 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Alfred Stieglitz Collection
Accession Number
1949.3.610
Art Historical Context
Alfred Stieglitz’s *Barnside* (1923) captures a quiet rural motif through the crisp clarity of a gelatin silver print. Measuring just under four by five inches, the intimate photograph reflects Stieglitz’s lifelong commitment to elevating photography to the status of fine art. By the early 1920s he had moved away from the soft-focus effects of Pictorialism toward a sharper, more direct approach that celebrated the camera’s unique descriptive power. Created during the artist’s summers at his Lake George, New York farm, the image belongs to a body of work that explored vernacular American subje...
About the Artist
Alfred Stieglitz · 1864–1946
Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) was a pioneering American photographer, art dealer, publisher, and advocate for the Modernist movement who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to German Jewish immigrant parents, Stieglitz spent his formative years studying mechanical engineering in Berlin, where he discovered photography in ...