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Equivalents

Photograph
1927 (photographed)
Artist/Maker
Stieglitz, Alfred (photographer)

A black and white photograph of a cloudscape.

Object details

Category
Photographs
Object type
Photograph
Titles
  • Equivalents (assigned by artist)
  • Songs of the Sky / Equivalent (assigned by artist)
  • Equivalents (series title)
Materials and techniques
gelatin silver print
Photographic Paper
Photography
Gelatin Silver Process
Brief description
Photography by Alfred Stieglitz, 'Equivalents', gelatin silver print, 1927
Physical description
A black and white photograph of a cloudscape.
Dimensions
  • Image height: 119mm
  • Image width: 92mm
  • Sheet height: 350mm
  • Sheet width: 272mm
Gallery label
(20/11/2012)
This photograph by Stieglitz shows only the sky. The series of images demonstrates that remarkable photographs need not rely on unusual subjects. The images were intended to evoke a psychological or emotional state in the viewer. On the reverse of some of the prints in this series, Stieglitz wrote ‘all ways are up’. The phrase seems both to answer a practical concern, and to hint at the answer to a metaphysical question.
(11 03 2014)
Gallery 100, ‘History of photography’, 2012-2013, label texts :

Alfred Stieglitz (1864 – 1946)
‘Equivalent’
1923 – 9

These photographs by Stieglitz show only the sky.
They demonstrate that remarkable photographs
need not rely on unusual subjects. The images were
intended to evoke a psychological or emotional state
in the viewer. On the reverse of some of the prints in
this series, Stieglitz wrote ‘all ways are up’. The phrase
seems both to answer a practical concern, and to hint
at the answer to a metaphysical question.

Gelatin silver prints
Museum nos. Ph.367, 368, 370-1982

Subject depicted
Clouds
Associated objects
Bibliographic references
  • Sara Eden Greenough Alfred Stieglitz's photographs of clouds ('Equivalents') University of New Mexico, PhD, 1984
  • Dorothy Norman, Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer Aperture Books, New York, 1973.
  • Jonathan Green History of Photography, col 15, no. 2, Summer 1991
  • "The Collection of Dorothy Norman", Aperture, vol 124 (pp.50-55), Summer 1991.
  • Evelyn Roth "From 291 to an American Place: a demonstration of the Stieglitz aesthetic", American Photographer, vol 18 (p.33), June 1987.
  • Greenough, Sarah. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2002., vol. 1, 496 pp., iIl. ISBN 0810935333
Other number
1210 - Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set
Collection
Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection
Accession number
PH.370-1982

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Record createdJanuary 12, 2009
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O182341/equivalents-photograph-stieglitz-alfred/
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