Lens Master

Manhattan's classy, glassy Museum of Modern Art prides itself on being up-to-date. But last week the Museum opened a show that at first glance looked decidedly oldfashioned. On the walls were 98 photographs by Old Master Alfred Stieglitz, who was 82 when he died last summer. The pictures ranged from 1889 to 1935; included horsecarts, snowstorms, "portraits" showing only the hands, unabashedly sexy nudes, and studies of clouds.

Visitors accustomed to the sharp, snappy shots that cram the pages of picture magazines and camera annuals might wonder why critics rate Stieglitz the greatest artist in the short history of photography. The answer lay in the pictures, but it was not on the surface. Stieglitz had never resorted to trick camera angles and darkroom shenanigans for their own sake, never searched out dramatic subjects. His art called for consistent understatement.

Fame at 26. Stieglitz himself was just as flamboyant and talkative as his art was quiet. His father, a Manhattan wool merchant, had sent him to study engineering in Berlin, but he liked studying photography better. He came home famous at 26, in a few years had won 150 prizes. Stieglitz was already becoming noted for his "firsts." He was the first to photograph moving objects at night. His imaginative eye made him a pioneer in picturing airplanes, snowstorms, skyscrapers, clouds. Then, flaunting his black cape in the face of the American dollar, the young romantic announced that he disliked competitions and would not make one picture for money. Stieglitz had plenty of uses for his small private income. One of the first was a magazine--the now classic Camera Work --which proved that photography was an art, and incidentally established the reputations of Paul Strand, Edward Steichen and other young photographers.

When he was not photographing and editing, Stieglitz was fighting. No self-respecting art gallery would show photographs, so he opened his own with the help of his growing circle of admirers. Along with photographers, he introduced most of the pioneers of modern art to the U.S. Among them were Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec. Rodin, Picasso and Matisse. He fought for home talent too; Max Weber, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Charles Demuth and Georgia O'Keeffe (whom he later married) all rose to fame through him. But Stieglitz always insisted he was no dealer. He never sold a painting unless he was sure the buyer appreciated it, and refused to take a commission. Stieglitz' own magnificent collection (part given and part purchased for a song) was on exhibition with his photographs last week.

Undisturbed Pictures. Stieglitz' silver mane became the central planet of a worshipful cult. Lewis Mumford, Waldo Frank, Sherwood Anderson, Dorothy Norman and Gertrude Stein all sat at his feet.

As he declined into old age, fewer & fewer new people found their way to the high, white little gallery on Manhattan's Madison Ave., called "An American Place." "I'm glad," he would say mysteriously, "that no one has been in today to disturb these pictures." Some of those who did were frightened away by the proprietor's brooding glance.

But other strangers he welcomed with rambling tales of past battles, and searching hints that "the spirit" was still in strife. The enemy always turned out to be something deeper than prejudice and more dangerous than moneygrubbing; it was whatever interfered with living fully, in the moment. He was in pain much of the time. Lying on the cot in his cavelike "office" just off the gallery, he used to say that now he himself was "in retreat. I just lie here, trying to understand."

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