{"data":{"id":"1292","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":1292,"topgoose_id":787,"tms_id":1292,"display_name":"Alfred Stieglitz","sort_name":"Stieglitz Alfred","display_date":"1864–1946","begin_date":"1864","end_date":"1946","biography":"\u003cp\u003eIn 1922 Alfred Stieglitz—the influential photographer who played a seminal role in defining and promoting modern art in the early twentieth century—began to document the sky at his family estate on Lake George in New York. He eventually produced more than two hundred images, including \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/46374\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eSongs of the Sky B3\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, for the series, which came to be called Equivalent. The small size of these prints, made with a handheld Graflex camera, contrasts with their expansive subject. Light, the very substance of photography, is foregrounded here, expressing the tension between the transitory and the eternal that underlies photographic practice.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis series was a departure\nfor Stieglitz, who spent much of his career\nadvocating for “straight photography”\nthrough the numerous institutions he\ndeveloped. These included the magazine\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;Camera Work\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003eand a succession of important galleries in which he championed the work of fellow photographers such as \u003ca href=\"/artists/1276\"\u003eEdward Steichen\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"/artists/3500\"\u003ePaul Strand\u003c/a\u003e along with the paintings of European and American modernists—including his wife, \u003ca href=\"/artists/962\"\u003eGeorgia O’Keeffe\u003c/a\u003e, whose painterly abstractions of nature may have influenced the \u003cem\u003eEquivalent series\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this early print from the series,\nwisps of woolen white-and-gray\nclouds frame a slice of piercing light\nagainst a darkened sky. The viewer’s eye\nis drawn to the soft, curving shapes\nof the dissipating clouds, which,\ndisconnected from everyday experience,\nare meant to suggest an “equivalence”\nbetween one’s thoughts and nature.\n“Several people feel I have photographed\nGod,” Stieglitz wrote to the poet\nHart Crane in 1923. By connecting his\ninner life to the natural world, Stieglitz\nimbues a cross-section of the sky\nwith spiritual depth through a rhythm\nof abstracted forms.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":false,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500024301","wikidata_id":"Q313055","created_at":"2017-08-30T15:52:03.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-24T01:32:04.026-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/1292/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/1292/exhibitions"}}}}