Alfred Stieglitz

palladium print, numbered '201,' possibly by the photographer, in pencil in the margin, annotated '2-31A' in an unidentified hand in pencil on the reverse, tipped to a mount, framed, 1918-19

Estate of the photographer

To Georgia O'Keeffe

Estate of Georgia O'Keeffe

Private Collection

Christie's New York, 20 April 1994, Sale 7864, Lot 18

Edinburgh, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, The Naked Portrait, June - September 2007

Bry OK 31 A

Greenough 525

This lush palladium print has rich, warm tones and is essentially in excellent condition. It is on double-weight paper with a smooth surface and a faint sheen. After extremely careful examination, the following are just barely visible: a pin-prick-sized nick on the sitter's arm near the right edge of the image; a small, expertly applied deposit of original retouching in the sitter's lower region; a tiny rust-colored deposit of indeterminate nature on the sitter's inner thigh; and 2 small, very soft creases on the sitter's thigh and on her torso. None of the above-mentioned issues are obtrusive, and they have to be looked for to be seen. There are very thin, uneven margins, with minimal edge wear and chipping. The margin corners are lightly creased and there is a very small tear to the upper left margin corner. There are 13 very small graphite marks in the margins. The upper portion of the reverse of the photograph is affixed to off-white stiff board. Paper and adhesive remnants along the upper edge of the mount suggest that this print originally had an overmat attached to it. When this print was offered at Christie's in 1994, the cataloguing indicates that it was annotated 'Treated by Steichen' by Doris Bry on the mount. This annotation is no longer present, and may have been trimmed from the mount. The vast majority of Stieglitz's extant palladium prints in Georgia O'Keeffe's estate were treated by Steichen. Upon Stieglitz's death in 1946, his widow Georgia O’Keeffe and her assistant Bry sorted the photographs remaining in his collection for distribution to non-profit institutions. O’Keeffe felt that the palladium prints especially had shifted in tone over the years, and she asked Edward Steichen, then the Director of the Photographs Department at The Museum of Modern Art, to attempt to return these prints to their original appearance. Doris Bry has commented to the Sotheby’s Photographs Department that Steichen’s aid was enlisted because he, more than anyone, had known of Stieglitz’s work in the darkroom, and had printed extensively in platinum and palladium himself. The exact nature of Steichen’s treatment is uncertain, as no written records were left by Steichen regarding this project. What is certain is that over 230 palladium prints, carrying Bry’s inscription ‘treated by Steichen,’ have been located, and these include over 160 works in the National Gallery of Art, approximately 30 works in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and various works in the Art Institute of Chicago, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the George Eastman House, among others. A 1995 article by conservator Douglas Severson, ‘Alfred Stieglitz’s Palladium Photographs and Their Treatment by Edward Steichen,’ speculates on the nature of Steichen’s treatment, which, as Severson states, may never be known (cf. the Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, Volume 34, Number 1, pp. 1 – 10).
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The nude study of Georgia O’Keeffe offered here is one of only three prints of the image extant.  Austere, yet sensual, it signals a Modernist approach to the depiction of the nude that found its best expression in photography.   Similar in its aesthetic force to monumental bronze nudes created by Rodin and Maillol, the present image is wholly photographic, however, and delivers an experience strikingly different from nudes rendered in other media.

This and other studies of Georgia O’Keeffe were part of the multi-faceted composite portrait Stieglitz made of the artist during the years they were together.  From 1917 to 1933, Stieglitz photographed O’Keeffe again and again—not only her head and shoulders, but also her hands, her feet, her arms, legs, and torso.   As the critic Herbert Seligmann observed, a portrait, as envisioned by Stieglitz, was no longer confined to the face:

 ‘Any part of the body was seen in its revelation of the characteristic, timeless, essential being that the individual was;  and the moment chosen, the psychic state of the subject, the light of the month, the day, and the hour . . .  [all] played their parts in this arrestation of the fluid elements of experience.  Clearly here was something no other medium could even attempt and something no other photographer had dreamed of’ (quoted in America and Alfred Stieglitz, Garden City, 1934, p. 117).   

While  O’Keeffe’s hands reflected her artistic talents, and the face her intellect and spirit, the studies of her nude were the expression of the intimacy and passion she shared with Stieglitz, and thus an essential part of any portrait he might make of her. 

In 1921, Stieglitz held a show of his work at Mitchell Kennerley’s Anderson Galleries, a show that included a room of photographs of Georgia O’Keeffe.  The exhibition broke the Anderson’s attendance records—thousands of people passed through the Park Avenue galleries in less than a month—and among the most moving, and controversial, images in the show were the pictures of O’Keeffe.  ‘Hands, feet, hands and breasts, torsos, all parts and attitudes of the human body seen with a passion of revelation, produced an astonishing effect on the multitudes who wandered in and out of the rooms,’ wrote Seligmann.  ‘As for portraiture, traditional conceptions of it were shattered at one blow’ (ibid., pp. 116 and 117).  In her biography of her great-uncle, Sue Davidson Lowe has written that the public ‘was electrified,’ and of the O’Keeffe series in particular, that ‘women who saw the prints were often moved to tears’ (Stieglitz: A Memoir/Biography, New York, 1983, p. 241). 

Remembering the Anderson Galleries show, and the photographs of herself in particular, O’Keeffe later wrote,

‘Several men—after looking around a while—asked Stieglitz if he would photograph their wives or girlfriends the way he photographed me.  He was very amused and laughed about it.  If they had known the close relationship he would have needed to have to photograph their wives or girlfriends in the way he photographed me—I think they wouldn’t have been interested’ (Georgia O’Keeffe: A Portrait by Alfred Stieglitz, New York, 1978, unpaginated). 

The photograph offered here is the only print of this image in private hands.  The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C., owns two prints from this negative (Bry OK 31 A): a platinum print (Greenough 524) and a palladium print (Greenough 525).