2015.13
The Steerage
Artist
Alfred Stieglitz
(Hoboken, New Jersey, 1/1/1864 - 7/13/1946, New York City, New York)
Title
The Steerage
Creation Date
1906
Century
early 20th century
Dimensions
7 7/8 x 6 1/4 in. (20 x 15.88 cm)
Classification
Photographs
Creation Place
North America, United States
Medium and Support
photogravure on paper
Credit Line
Museum Purchase, Lloyd O. and Marjorie Strong Coulter Fund
Copyright
This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s
Copyright Terms and Conditions.
Accession Number
2015.13
As magazine editor, gallerist, and the champion of numerous modernist artists, Alfred Stieglitz was a highly visible presence in the New York art world and the leading advocate in America for photography as a fine art medium. The Steerage pictures passengers whose limited financial means consigned them to the least expensive section of the ship. Pablo Picasso admired the photograph, as its abstract, nearly cubist composition had much in common with his own visual experiments. More than two decades later, Stieglitz described his memory of the moment when he created this picture: “Coming to the end of the [first-class deck] I stood alone, looking down. . . . The scene fascinated me … I saw shapes related to one another—a picture of shapes, and underlying it, a new vision that held me: simple people; the feeling of ship, ocean, sky; a sense of release that I was away from the mob called the ‘rich.’ Rembrandt came into my mind and I wondered would he have felt as I did.”
