Alfred Stieglitz
The Steerage

CultureAmerican
Titles
  • The Steerage
Date1907, printed 1915
MediumPhotogravure
DimensionsImage: 13 1/8 × 10 3/8 in. (33.3 × 26.3 cm)
Sheet: 15 5/16 x 12 5/8 in. (38.9 x 32 cm)
Credit LineGift of Manfred Heiting, The Manfred Heiting Collection
Object number2004.675
Non exposé

Explore Further

Department
Photography
Object Type
Description

Though it was captured in the blink of an eye, The
Steerage
is one of the most enduring artworks in the history of
photography and the seminal work of artist Alfred Stieglitz’s famed career.
Contrary to myth, it is not a document of immigrants arriving in the United
States nor disillusioned Europeans returning home. For Stieglitz, the picture
was a study of form and space: “A round straw hat; the funnel leaning left, the
stairway leaning right; the white drawbridge. I saw shapes related to one another—a
picture of shapes, and underlying it, a new vision that held me.”
The
Steerage
represented a new course for his photography, not as a
mimic of painting but as a complete and unique art form.




Provenance[Virginia Zabriskie Gallery]; [Lunn Ltd., Washington, D.C.]; purchased by Manfred Heiting, February 24, 1976; given to MFAH, 2004.
Exhibition History"Colección Ordóñez-Falcón de Fotografía", IVAM Centre Julio Gonzalez, Valencia, 1996;
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
[No inscriptions]
[Not signed]
N/A

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

If you have questions about this work of art or the MFAH Online Collection please contact us.

Alfred Stieglitz
1899, published October 1905
Photogravure
92.135
Alfred Stieglitz
1904
Photogravure
86.32
Spring Showers–The Street-Cleaner
Alfred Stieglitz
1900–1901, printed 1903–1904
Photogravure
2004.674
Old and New New York
Alfred Stieglitz
published October 1911
Photogravure
78.88.5
The Aeroplane
Alfred Stieglitz
1910, printed 1911
Photogravure
78.88.6
A Dirigible
Alfred Stieglitz
published October 1911
Photogravure
78.88.7
The City of Ambition
Alfred Stieglitz
published October 1911
Photogravure
78.88.1
The Mauretania
Alfred Stieglitz
published October 1911
Photogravure
78.88.3
The City Across the River
Alfred Stieglitz
published October 1911
Photogravure
78.88.2
Lower Manhattan
Alfred Stieglitz
published October 1911
Photogravure
78.88.4