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Stieglitz: A Memoir / Biography

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This is an excellent biography. Written by Sue Davidson Lowe, Alfred Stieglitz's niece, "Stieglitz : A Memoir/Biography" is written objectively, yet with the knowingness and acceptance of a relative. This book presents a well-balanced picture of Stieglitz, his accomplishments (not only his own artistic endeavors, but his efforts to make photography an accepted art form), friends, family, and life. When I was done reading this biography, I felt that I had been presented with a coherent, entertaining, and candid portrayal of Stieglitz. I have read many biographies and autobiographies, of these, I have felt that about one-fourth are well-written and worth reading -- this Stieglitz biography is one of them.

My interest in this biography was piqued by my mounting scepticism of the claims of early 20th century modernist artists and their promoters, whether critics, collectors or curators. Much of what we think we know about early American modernism is little more than oft repeated hand-me-down information that manifests the bearer's uncritical satisfaction with the modernist enterprise. Such information serves to maintain the artist's place in the modernist temple that subsequent enthusiasts and fans have constructed and served as keepers of the flame. Critical, layered and thorough historical study reveals such notions as ideology, mere mythologizing constructs.

Readers of Ms. Lowe's exceptionally well written biography will find a fair and balanced AND critically engaged account of an adequately talented photographer who was one of the principal apologists of modernist ideas in New York, with a reputation in Europe as well. With his small enclosed (are modernist gatherings ever open?) circle of artists and holding court in his galleries, Alfred Stieglitz combatively denounced skeptical visitors who didn't or wouldn't "get it." This was was the Stieglitzian modernist "my way or the highway" pronouncement which cowed fawning acolytes.

A vorcious AND impressionable reader, he embraced Freudian ideas subsequently discredited in the later 20th century. Believing in the "pure artist untainted by commerce,Stieglitz turned against his young associate Edward Steichen when the latter became successful as an artistic commercial photographer (his career was also characterized by attracting the public; Stieglitz's publications always shed their subscribers who got fed-up with his sermonizing enthusiasms that strayed from photographic matters) Mind you, Steichen accomplished a multi-faceted career without "daddy's money," with which Stieglitz was bankrolled for much of his bohemian life (danke, PaPa!). He seems to also have been his mother's favorite.

Among the book's strong sections are its coverage of the regular gatherings of the Stieglitz clan at the family's summer house in upstate New York. Here family dynamics were played out that revealingly throw Stieglitz's personality into contrast with those of his siblings, friends and younger lover Georgia O'Keefe (one of the more over-rated American artists of the 20th century) who also shared his inflexible termperament.

The author, who spent years meticulously researching available archives (some still remain sealed), has produced a fully-orbed account of the glories and contradictions of an archetypal American modernist. It is a definitive study of Steiglitz and his personal world.

I'm enjoying my reading experience of this biography of Steiglitz, because it offers the reader firsthand knowledge, as well as information gleaned from other parties associated with Alfred. Although my prior knowledge of him has been primarily through reading about Georgia O'Keeffe or other artists whose work he promoted, I didn't realize that Georgia entered his life after so many years of his unhappy marriage. The experiences in life which shaped him into an individual with such strong personal convictions also has given me a much more complete understanding of who he was, and the trials he faced in being true to a personal philosophy. Although I am only half done with the book, I have gleaned so much new information already, and am finding it very satisfying reading.Stieglitz: A Memoir/Biography