The Flatiron

1901

Breakdown and resignation from Camera Notes

Worn down by the strain of managing the Camera Club, in 1901 Stieglitz collapsed in the first of several mental breakdowns and spent much of the summer recuperating at Oaklawn, the family home on Lake George. Back in New York, he announced his resignation as editor of Camera Notes.

1902

Founds the Photo-Secession

In December 1901 Charles DeKay of the National Arts Club invited Stieglitz to put together an exhibition with “full power to follow his own inclinations”. Within two months he had assembled prints from a close circle of friends and, in homage to the Munich photographers, called the group the Photo-Secession, a secession not only from the artistic restrictions of the era but from the official oversight of the Camera Club.

25 November 1905

The 291 gallery opens on Fifth Avenue

On November 25, 1905, the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession opened at 291 Fifth Avenue with one hundred prints by thirty-nine photographers; Edward Steichen had encouraged Stieglitz to lease the three rooms across from his own apartment. The gallery was an instant success, with almost fifteen thousand visitors in its first season and print sales of nearly $2,800, more than half of them Steichen's work.

1907

Paris: Gertrude Stein and a turn to painting

In Paris in 1907 Stieglitz met Gertrude Stein and was captivated by Rodin, Matisse, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cézanne and Rousseau. He decided to turn his photography gallery into a full art gallery to introduce the conservative American public to the newest European art.

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.

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.