The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 19, 2024

The Steerage

The Steerage

1907
(American, 1864–1946)
America, 20th century
photogravure
Image: 32 x 25.7 cm (12 5/8 x 10 1/8 in.); Image with black margin: 33.2 x 26.5 cm (13 1/16 x 10 7/16 in.); Paper: 40 x 27.9 cm (15 3/4 x 11 in.); Mounted: 50.8 x 38 cm (20 x 14 15/16 in.)
Gift of Diann G. Mann and Thomas A. Mann 2019.22
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

This print is Alfred Stieglitz’s own, lifelong copy of The Steerage, one of his most important works.

Description

With his camera, Stieglitz transformed a scene of impoverished immigrants returning to Europe into a study in shape and form; the image sparked his evolution from a pictorialist into a modernist. Reflecting on his career in 1942, Stieglitz proclaimed this image, taken in 1907, as an achievement of modern art that anticipated Cubism.
  • Georgia O'Keeffe [1887-1986]
    Delacroix Davis, Jr.
    Ledel Gallery, New York, NY
    1983
    Thomas A. and Diann G. Mann, Palm Beach Gardens, FL
    March 4, 2019
    the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Alfred Stieglitz, Camera Work, New York. No. 36, October 1911, pl. IX
    Newhall, Beaumont. The History of Photography: From 1839 to the Present Day. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1964. p. 112
    Norman, Dorothy, and Alfred Stieglitz. Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer. 1973. p. 65
    Frank, Waldo David, Lewis Mumford, Dorothy Norman, Paul Rosenfeld, and Harold Ordway Rugg. America & Alfred Stieglitz: A Collective Portrait. [Millerton, N.Y.]: Aperture, Inc, 1979. pl. XXVII-B
    Stieglitz, Alfred, Sarah Greenough, and Juan Hamilton. Alfred Stieglitz, Photographs & Writings. [Washington, D.C.]: National Gallery of Art, 1983. pl. 18
    Greenough, Sarah. Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries. Washington [D.C.]: National Gallery of Art, 2000. pl. 30, p. 140
    Homer, William Innes, and Catherine Johnson. Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession, 1902. New York: Viking Studio, 2002. p. 156
    National Gallery of Art (U.S.), Sarah Greenough, and Alfred Stieglitz. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set : the Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2002. p. 190-94, cat. no. 310-14
    Tannenbaum, Barbara. “Acquisitions 2019: Photography.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 60, no. 2 (March/April 2020): 24-26. Reproduced and Mentioned: P. 24.
  • {{cite web|title=The Steerage|url=false|author=Alfred Stieglitz|year=1907|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2019.22