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.