[Dancing School]
Photograph
[Dancing School]
ca. 1905
Bromoil transfer print
Image/Overall: 19.6 x 13.5 cm
Gift of Hermine Turner, 1971
1971.0042.0025
Inscriptions [no inscriptions on recto, print not removed from matte to inspect verso at time of cataloging]
TextIn 1902, Alfred Stieglitz, who had been the editor of the New York Camera Club’s publication Camera Notes, announced the formation of the Photo-Secession and launched the journal Camera Work as its mouthpiece. The group was devoted “to pictorial photography” and sought “to compel its recognition, not as the handmaiden of art, but as a distinctive medium of individual expression.” Members’ works often involved photographic techniques that emphasized the craftsmanship of the photographic print, such as gum bichromate and oil transfer processes, and their subject matter and compositions are consistent with contemporaneous painting styles, frequently Impressionism, Symbolism, or Tonalism. Along with Edward Steichen and Clarence White, Gertrude Käsebier was among the group’s original members. Her photographs were most often domestic scenes suffused with soft light that suggested introspection on femininity and motherhood. This particular work also calls to mind John Singer Sargent’s The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882), thus asserting Käsebier’s artistic affinities.
Lisa Hostetler, Ph.D.
Curator in Charge, Department of Photography
Label for A History of Photography [Rotation 1]
May 9–September 28, 2014
Lisa Hostetler, Ph.D.
Curator in Charge, Department of Photography
Label for A History of Photography [Rotation 1]
May 9–September 28, 2014
