Stieglitz: A Beginning Light [Hardcover]

Ms. Katherine Hoffman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 11, 2004

This beautifully written book weaves together biographical, historical, and artistic strands to present a colorful tapestry of the photographer Alfred Stieglitz’s (1864–1946) early life and work. Generously illustrated, the volume includes photographs Stieglitz took in Europe (some rarely seen), his first works in the United States, and Katherine Hoffman’s new photographs of important sites in young Stieglitz’s life. The book is the first to look closely at the photographer’s formative years and photographic works before 1917.

Although Stieglitz was born in New Jersey, his ancestry lay in Germany, where he spent some of his high school and university years. Stieglitz: A Beginning Light traces the lasting influences of European culture on his work, as well as the impact of American democratic traditions. The book also recounts his tireless and often lonely efforts as a young photographer, editor, writer, and gallery director to gain recognition for the Modernist cause and for photography as a fine art.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), the influential photographer who worked to promote modern art in America-and to make sure that photography was included among its genres-was one of the most important figures in American artistic life during the first part of the 20th century. In her thoughtful, well-researched book, Hoffman (An Enduring Spirit: The Art of Georgia O'Keeffe) follows Stieglitz through his early career, first in Europe, where he studied as a young man, and then in America, where he made many of his most famous photographs and founded the vehicles through which he advanced his causes: the Photo-Secession, an association of photographers devoted to dignifying their profession; Camera Work, a quarterly periodical that promoted modern art and photography through text and visual images; and 291, the gallery where he showed the works of avant-garde artists. Hoffman discuses the significance of these ventures and analyzes many of Stieglitz's photographs, placing them in the context of his personal relationships, the places he traveled and his love of music, and pointing out the influences of Symbolism and Synthetism. She ends her account in 1917, the year that saw the closing of the 291 gallery, the final issue of Camera Work and Stieglitz's first photographs of Georgia O'Keeffe. Hoffman's text is rather dry, but it is enlivened by Stieglitz's stunning photographs. Included are appendices with explanations of the photographic processes Stiegliz used, a listing of the contents of the issues of Camera Work, and the exhibition schedule of the 291 gallery.
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Review

This beautifully written book weaves together biographical, historical, and artistic strands to present a colorful tapestry of photographer Alfred Stieglitz’s early life and work. The volume includes photographs Stieglitz took in Europe (some rarely seen), his first works in the U.S., and new photographs of important sites in the young Stieglitz’s life.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 381 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1St Edition edition (December 11, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300102399
• ISBN-13: 978-0300102390
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #863,787 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book, January 13, 2005

By 

harve sherman - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stieglitz: A Beginning Light (Hardcover)

If you are a Stieglitz follower and if you think that you have read all that there is to read about him, you are wrong..
Katherine Hoffman has come to the 'Stieglitz-Biography' late, and yet has produced a newly discovered Alfred Stieglitz. I was hesitant to purchase another 'A.S. Biography', but once I entered her work, I was smitten.
The history of a great artist needs a passionate eye and a fresh start and her view of his European journies and the intimacies of his relationship with his family and 'Artists' were given a renewed spirit and a kind passion in Katherine's voice.
She has given us new experiences in the selection of her 'images' and expanded Stieglitz's body of work for me.
As 'passionate' as Stieglitz was to the critical aspects of his work ,so too is the 'biographers' passion and admiration for the Artist, his Ambitions, the Art of his Photographs and his Philosophy - found page after page in her book.
I am happy that I took the step inside yet another Alfred Stieglitz Biography and yet saddened that this edition had to end so soon...
I look forward to a follow up on "A Beginning Light" with 'the adjoining years..'
I am certain that Ms. Katherine Hoffman has more to say.
Harve Sherman - collector

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Looking, But Short On Analysis, August 8, 2005

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Stieglitz: A Beginning Light (Hardcover)

Hoffman follows Stieglitz from his earliest days, in the wake of the American Civil War, to his marriage to Emmeline and a growing obsession witrh photography and the avant-garde, fueled by Wagner's music and his legend as a fiercely independent artist at the birth of modernism. Too bad Emmy was a conventional type who didn't understand her husband's drive for perfection, and too bad that Stieglitz wasn't the world's greatest father to his only child, poor Kitty. It seems clear that for Stieglitz, he would not be happy with a conventional marriage and he became increasingly dependent on adulterous relations, including an affair with the wife of his protege Paul Strand. Hoffman promises to reveal more about Stieglitz in a second volume, including his marriage to painter Georgia O'Keeffe, but for now the book ends with the dissolution in 1917 of his famous gallery "291."

As in her books on Georgia O'Keeffe, Hoffman's specialty is tracing the influence on the artist of various other plastic arts and music. But this approach isn't especially illuminating. With Stieglitz, the comparisons to Wagner fall short of being able to tell us anything about the work itself (where they do not indeed distort it nearly beyond recognition). Hoffman is safer in analyzing individual photos by Stieglitz, but this analysis too often scratches only the surface, or even just the surface of the surface. Take this comment on Stieglitz's many photos of the toddler Kitty:

"The subtly colored images frequently show Kitty with her long wavy hair, often tied with a large ribbon, well dressed and holding flowers, leaves, or a plant. Stieglitz's association of his daughter with blooming plant forms suggests the traditional analogy between the female and the life cycles of nature." And that's it. You keep waiting for something more, but only the obvious ever seems to satisfy Dr. Hoffman. Well, that's not entirely fair, because she's a careful writer who has done a great deal of research, and some of her conclusions, if arguable, are plainly stated. Best of all is her ability to make connections, such as the kinship between Stieglitz and one of his gallery's artists, the Tarot goddess Pamela Colman Smith. Had Hoffman not pointed up the similarities between their work I would never have thought it.

4.0 out of 5 stars A "must read", but..., January 16, 2011

By 

C. McConnell (Calgary, Alberta) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Stieglitz: A Beginning Light (Hardcover)

This book presents material that I've seen nowhere else--including quite a few images that likely haven't been published before--but it's the worst-edited "academic" book I've ever seen. How could Yale University Press publish this without a careful proofreading? But set that aside, as the author has plenty of fresh observations (and more than a few forgettable ones, too) to go with a great collection of photographs.