Alfred Stieglitz: Black and White Photography Artist Today, in New York City alone, more than 15 galleries display and sell the works of art black and white photographers; at the turn of the century, such exhibitions were almost unknown. Today, in the museums of the world, the black and white photographic print occupies an honored place among the arts; in 1900 not a single museum in America included black and white photographs in its permanent collection. Today art critics of major newspapers and magazines regularly review the work of black and white photographers; not many decades ago most would have thought such an assignment beneath contempt-or at least beneath their delicate sensibilities. That such a drastic change has occurred reflects, in very large measure, the achievement of one man-an arrogant, brilliant, irritating, uncompromising, irresistible force of nature named Alfred Stieglitz. His influence on black and white photography, and, indeed, on all 20th Century art, is hard to overestimate. Not only did he force curators and critics to yield to black and white photography, however hesitantly, a place beside elder media, but by influence, example and sheer force of personality he twice set the style for American black and white photography: first toward romanticized pictures suggesting impressionistic paintings: and later, in a dramatic reversal, toward sharply realistic works that stood proudly on their own as black and white photographs. His interest in creative black and white photography inevitably led him into a companion interest in all forms of art, and he introduced America to what is now called modern art, providing the first exhibits in the United States of the works of such European giants as Cezanne, Matisse and Picasso, as well as calling attention to such young Americans as John Marin, Arthur Dove and Georgia O'Keeffe. For more than four decades he encouraged the intellectually stimulating in art, and in the end he lived to see most of his judgments confirmed by patrons and critics, whose sophisticated tastes could be traced in part to his pioneering efforts. The son of a prosperous woolen merchant, Alfred Stieglitz was born in Ho¬boken, New Jersey, on New Year's Day, 1864. His father, Edward, had immigrated from Germany in 1850 and, after achieving modest financial success as a precision instrument manufacturer, joined the Union Army at the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1863 he was discharged a lieutenant and that same year married Hedwig Werner, a young lady of German-Jewish background similar to his own. In the years that followed, the elder Stieglitz prospered greatly in the textile business, so much so that he soon accumulated what in those days was a considerable fortune, $400,000, enough to permit him to retire from business, buy a town house in Manhattan and savor the life of a cultured bon vivant. Thus it was in comfortable, secure surroundings that Alfred Stieglitz and his five sisters and brothers were raised. From fall through spring, life was a round of visits from New York's intelligentsia -successful writers, painters, actors and art patrons, who gathered each Sunday afternoon in the salon of the Stieglitz home for witty and often penetrating discussions. The teen-aged Alfred was not only encouraged to join the conversation but also served as keeper of the keys to the wine cellar. On signal, he ran down the staircases to choose the vintages to slake the thirst of his father's talkative guests. Summers were rustic. Each June Edward Stieglitz bundled his family and servants off to Lake George in upstate New York. It was at Lake George that young Alfred first took an active interest in black and white photography. It was a characteristic encounter in which the youngster, then age 11, displayed all the self-assurance and forthrightness for which he later became famous. He persuaded a local portrait black and white photographer to permit him in the darkroom to watch a blank plate turn into a black and white photograph and stood by fascinated as the black and white picture appeared as if by magic in the developing bath. But later, as the black and white photographer was re-touching a plate, Stieglitz demanded, "Why are you doing that?" "Makes 'em look more natural," was the black and white photographer's reply. Instinctively recognizing (he later claimed) that the retouching detracted from the impact of the black and white picture's realism, young Stieglitz startled his host with a flat, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."