Becky Edelson

January – May 1916

Meets Georgia O'Keeffe

In January 1916 the suffragist Anita Pollitzer showed Stieglitz a set of charcoal drawings by Georgia O'Keeffe, and he decided to exhibit them at 291 without meeting her or asking her permission. In late May O'Keeffe heard of it from a friend and came to the gallery to chastise him, which is how they met; by the summer of 1917 they were writing each other their most private thoughts.

1917

The end of the 291 gallery and of Camera Work

The year 1917 saw the end both of Stieglitz's direction of the 291 gallery, which he had run since 1905, and of Camera Work, which had produced 50 issues in 14 years. He later ran several more galleries.

1917

Duchamp's “Fountain” photographed at 291

Marcel Duchamp's readymade Fountain, a urinal signed “R. Mutt” that had been rejected by the Society of Independent Artists exhibition, was displayed and photographed at Stieglitz's gallery-studio 291. The photograph was published in The Blind Man; the original soon disappeared, and it was from this photograph that the Fountain was later reconstructed.

June 1918

O'Keeffe comes to New York; he leaves his family

In early June 1918 O'Keeffe moved to New York from Texas after Stieglitz promised her a quiet studio. Within a month his wife Emmy came home during one of the first nude photography sessions in the family apartment and told him to stop seeing O'Keeffe or get out; Stieglitz left and immediately found a place in the city where he and O'Keeffe could live together.