The Steerage
1907, printed 1920/39
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
Image/paper/first mount: 11 × 9.2 cm (4 3/8 × 3 5/8 in.); Second mount: 31.7 × 24.7 cm (12 1/2 × 9 3/4 in.)
Classification
gelatin silver (developing-out-paper) pr
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
66309
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Alfred Stieglitz shot this photograph in 1907, during a voyage by ocean liner to Europe; it was years, however, before he and others in his circle came to recognize it as a defining work of modernism, showing that photography could transcend its ostensible subject to depict deeper emotions. He later described the moment when, desperate to escape the stuffy upper classes, he looked down to the steerage level: “I saw shapes related to each other. I saw a picture of shapes and underlying that the f...
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 ...