Lot Essay
I have a very beautiful print of the hands with thimble. - I'm going to send it to you to see how you like it. - I want you to have something AA + 1 -
Of course you are to select. - But I want to make a beginning. -
- Alfred Stieglitz to Aline Meyer Liebman in a letter postmarked
April 4, 1921, now in the Archives of American Art
(op. cit., pp. 31 - 32)
At the time this print was offered to Mrs. Liebman, the two enthusiasts had already developed an extensive correspondence and friendship based on their mutual participation in photography and American art. The exchange of letters that began around 1915 continued through the 1930s. Stieglitz had obviously found not only a patron but a compatriot in Aline Liebman and his letters fully reflect a trusting relationship. Following the above, in May 1921, he wrote: Furthermore I'd want you to look at more prints as I originally suggested. - You are to have what you like best. - I sent the "Hands" as a start because of the beauty of the print - & merely to make a start. - It did not mean that you were not to choose another if you preferred another. - So we must arrange that you come soon. - Some time next week. This week I'm simply deluged with helping Marin & Hartley - exhibitions & auctions - & books to be published - and a big show of American Moderns, at the Pennsylvania Academy. - So you see what my withdrawal has done for me!
There are seven other palladium prints of this image in museum collections and one in silver in private hands. Of these collections (The National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Art Institute of Chicago; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) all, except for Boston and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, received theirs from Georgia O'Keeffe in 1949-50 or later, in donations made from Stieglitz' estate. Boston purchased their print directly from Stieglitz in 1924 and the Metropolitan in 1928 - three and seven years after Aline Liebman acquired hers.
After Stieglitz' death in 1946 and prior to the donations, O'Keeffe became concerned about the quality of many of the prints in the estate. Fearing that they may have faded or changed tones, she enlisted the advice and assistance of Edward Steichen, probably the only photographer possessing the technical and practical knowledge of the wide variety of methods and papers used by the late master. Hoping to arrest whatever alterations O'Keeffe felt were occurring if any, Steichen treated the palladium and platinum prints. He left no notes on his treatments and until recently this mystery remained unaddressed. In an attempt to analyze Steichen's treatments, the National Gallery developed an extensive non-invasive testing program for selected prints from their collection and the other recipient museums. Until the conclusions of that testing are fully understood, the nature of Steichen's treatment remains a mystery. The Liebman print, however, was not subjected to treatment as it was acquired directly from the photographer and is, of all the palladium prints Stieglitz produced, one of the very few untouched by Steichen. With its delicate, lightly waxed surface and the slight touch of inpainting, highlighting the needle, the print appears today in nearly the exact state in which Stieglitz released it.
As a muse to his modernist work, Stieglitz' relationship with Georgia O'Keeffe fueled the inspiration for one of the finer and extensive documentative portraits of this century. Stieglitz' extended "Portrait" of O'Keeffe is composed of a large number of images reflecting a range of photographic approaches: "snapshots" in the tradition of his early hand-held camera work, revealing his companion at painting en plein air, strolling through the hills of Lake George, posed in their cramped New York home; and other arranged pictures - noble heads, sensuous or uncompromising nudes, abstracted or full length; and her hands, described at all the tasks one might expect from a self-sufficient woman.
Stieglitz found O'Keeffe's hands to be the magical extension of her soul. Where he might find a facial expression daunting or severe, it was in her hands he found true expression of her womanhood. Her hands peeled apples and clutched her breast; they contorted to create complex forms and they delicately held a needle to deftly perform a function of minutest detail. Even though his conventional portraits of O'Keeffe conveyed a woman of her own standing, of her own talent and spirit, it was in Stieglitz' elliptical details, separate from the rest of her body, which offers full confirmation of his respect and admiration for her being.
Of course you are to select. - But I want to make a beginning. -
- Alfred Stieglitz to Aline Meyer Liebman in a letter postmarked
April 4, 1921, now in the Archives of American Art
(op. cit., pp. 31 - 32)
At the time this print was offered to Mrs. Liebman, the two enthusiasts had already developed an extensive correspondence and friendship based on their mutual participation in photography and American art. The exchange of letters that began around 1915 continued through the 1930s. Stieglitz had obviously found not only a patron but a compatriot in Aline Liebman and his letters fully reflect a trusting relationship. Following the above, in May 1921, he wrote: Furthermore I'd want you to look at more prints as I originally suggested. - You are to have what you like best. - I sent the "Hands" as a start because of the beauty of the print - & merely to make a start. - It did not mean that you were not to choose another if you preferred another. - So we must arrange that you come soon. - Some time next week. This week I'm simply deluged with helping Marin & Hartley - exhibitions & auctions - & books to be published - and a big show of American Moderns, at the Pennsylvania Academy. - So you see what my withdrawal has done for me!
There are seven other palladium prints of this image in museum collections and one in silver in private hands. Of these collections (The National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Art Institute of Chicago; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) all, except for Boston and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, received theirs from Georgia O'Keeffe in 1949-50 or later, in donations made from Stieglitz' estate. Boston purchased their print directly from Stieglitz in 1924 and the Metropolitan in 1928 - three and seven years after Aline Liebman acquired hers.
After Stieglitz' death in 1946 and prior to the donations, O'Keeffe became concerned about the quality of many of the prints in the estate. Fearing that they may have faded or changed tones, she enlisted the advice and assistance of Edward Steichen, probably the only photographer possessing the technical and practical knowledge of the wide variety of methods and papers used by the late master. Hoping to arrest whatever alterations O'Keeffe felt were occurring if any, Steichen treated the palladium and platinum prints. He left no notes on his treatments and until recently this mystery remained unaddressed. In an attempt to analyze Steichen's treatments, the National Gallery developed an extensive non-invasive testing program for selected prints from their collection and the other recipient museums. Until the conclusions of that testing are fully understood, the nature of Steichen's treatment remains a mystery. The Liebman print, however, was not subjected to treatment as it was acquired directly from the photographer and is, of all the palladium prints Stieglitz produced, one of the very few untouched by Steichen. With its delicate, lightly waxed surface and the slight touch of inpainting, highlighting the needle, the print appears today in nearly the exact state in which Stieglitz released it.
As a muse to his modernist work, Stieglitz' relationship with Georgia O'Keeffe fueled the inspiration for one of the finer and extensive documentative portraits of this century. Stieglitz' extended "Portrait" of O'Keeffe is composed of a large number of images reflecting a range of photographic approaches: "snapshots" in the tradition of his early hand-held camera work, revealing his companion at painting en plein air, strolling through the hills of Lake George, posed in their cramped New York home; and other arranged pictures - noble heads, sensuous or uncompromising nudes, abstracted or full length; and her hands, described at all the tasks one might expect from a self-sufficient woman.
Stieglitz found O'Keeffe's hands to be the magical extension of her soul. Where he might find a facial expression daunting or severe, it was in her hands he found true expression of her womanhood. Her hands peeled apples and clutched her breast; they contorted to create complex forms and they delicately held a needle to deftly perform a function of minutest detail. Even though his conventional portraits of O'Keeffe conveyed a woman of her own standing, of her own talent and spirit, it was in Stieglitz' elliptical details, separate from the rest of her body, which offers full confirmation of his respect and admiration for her being.