Passing Steamer

Paul Haviland

1910 · Platinum print · Photographs

The son of a well-off china manufacturer in Limoges, Haviland encountered Alfred Stieglitz's Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession in 1908. He soon contributed articles to and published photographs in Stieglitz's journal Camera Work (and acted as the gallery's secretary at one point), even bankrolling the gallery's three-year lease for Stieglitz when the rent was raised. In 1915 he started-with the Mexican-born caricaturist and gallerist Marius de Zayas and the journalist Agnes Ernest Meyer-a new magazine called 291, named for Stieglitz's gallery at 291 Fifth Avenue. This image appeared as a photogravure in a 1912 issue of Camera Work. While the soft focus and platinum printing are traces of the waning Pictorialist style, the unexpected vantage point and stark design made Passing Steamer a harbinger of things to come.

Artist

Paul Haviland

Date

1910

Medium

Platinum print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gilman Collection, Purchase, Harriette and Noel Levine Gift, 2005