Alfred Stieglitz

By photographing clouds, Stieglitz meant to demonstrate how "to hold a moment, how to record something so completely, that all who see [the picture of it] will relive an equivalent of what has been expressed"…

In 1902 Stieglitz founded the Photo-Secession Group, as a protest against the conventional photography of the time. Stieglitz’s best work are the series of prints of his wife, the painter Georgia O’Keeffe, and his studies of cloud patterns suggesting emotions. After his early schooling in New York, he moved, with his family, to Europe in 1881, to further his and his brothers’ education. Stieglitz started his studies in mechanical engineering, at the Berlin Polytechnic, in 1883…

Works in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1949 Georgia O’Keeffe honored the long friendship between Alfred Stieglitz and Duncan Phillips with a gift of nineteen photographs from Stieglitz’s series of cloud photographs (1922-35). O’Keeffe accompanied the gift with the statement: "I know that I should send these to you because Stieglitz so often spoke of intending to send these himself. I think they will feel much at home with you."

Equivalent (Series)