Title
Mending NetsArtist
Stieglitz, Alfred (American, 1864-1946)Key FigurePublication
Camera Notes Vol. 2 No. 3Date
1899 plate (1894 negative, 1899 print)Process
PhotogravureAtelier
Photochrome Engraving Company, New YorkImage Size
11.7 x 15.4 cm
Mending Nets is of a rare poetry, the effect of atmosphere being wonderfully rendered. [1]
Stieglitz made a number of images of fisher folk at a coastal town in the Netherlands and claimed that this one was his favorite because of how it typified their very existence. It expresses the life of a young Dutch woman; every stitch in the mending of the fishing net, the very rudiment of her existence, brings forth a torrent of poetic thoughts in those who watch her sit there on the vast and seemingly endless dunes, toiling with that seriousness and peacefulness which is so characteristic of these sturdy people. All her hopes are concentrated in this occupation – it is her life. [2] Just as Emerson investigated the lifestyle of the inhabitants on the Norfolk Broads, Stieglitz was intent upon picturing typical activities of these particular Dutch subjects. Originally reproduced in carbon, the Camera Notes version of the print is surprisingly lacking.
Reproduced / Exhibited
Greenough, Sarah, and Alfred Stieglitz. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set : the Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs. Washington, D.C: National Gallery of Art; New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2002
Homer, William I, Catherine Johnson, and Alfred Stieglitz. Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession, 1902. London: Penguin Putnam, 2002.
Jussim, Estelle. Slave to Beauty: The Eccentric Life and Controversial Career of F. Holland Day, Photographer, Publisher, Aesthete. Boston: Godine, 1981. p. 104
Norman, Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer, pl. 20
Peterson, Christian A. Alfred Stieglitz’s Camera Notes. Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1993.
Stieglitz, Alfred, Richard Whelan, and Sarah Greenough. Stieglitz on Photography: His Selected Essays and Notes. New York, NY: Aperture Foundation, 2000. p. 60
Valiant Knights of Daguerre: Selected Critical Essays on Photography and Profiles of Photographic Pioneers, p. 67
References
[1] Robert Demachy Camera Notes v2, no 3
[2] Stieglitz, Alfred, Richard Whelan, and Sarah Greenough. Stieglitz on Photography: His Selected Essays and Notes. New York, NY: Aperture Foundation, 2000. p. 60
