within that community. Its name was meant to
suggest the radical nature of the group as the
most progressive society of pictorialist photogra-
phers at work in the United States, and to evoke an
association with the secessionist avant-garde art
movements of Europe. The Photo-Secession was
an opportunity for re-presenting and re-defining
to a larger community what pictorial photography
could be.
Stieglitz and the members of the Photo-Secession
severed their allegiances to other organizations
within the larger photographic community during
a period of deep division between several schools of
thought about the nature of artistic photography
and the roles that amateur organizations should
take in its promotion. In the nineteenth century,
organizations such as the Camera Club of New
York and the Photographic Society of Philadelphia
had served a number of purposes, providing dark-
room facilities, exhibition space, and training to
photographers during an era when the practice of
photography was technically demanding. But with
the commercial availability of greatly simplified
photographic materials, such as the gelatin dry
plate in the late 1870s and with the introduction of
the Kodak camera and a photo-finishing industry
in the late 1880s, the practice of photography
became accessible to a much larger community
and the interests of camera club members became
more varied.
The very popularity of the medium and the ease
with which the new technologies made photography
accessible contributed to the rise of a pictorialist
movement to counter a perception of photography
as a purely mechanical medium practiced without
skill. It was the goal of this progressive, or New
School, movement to demonstrate the artistic pos-
sibilities of photography. Influenced by a number
of other movements within the traditional arts, such
as Impressionism and Symbolism, photographers in
Europe and the United States arrived at a pictori-
alist aesthetic often characterized by soft focus, a
massing of highlights and shadows, and highly
manipulated printing techniques meant to demon-
strate control by the photographer over his or her
work and at times to mimic the appearance of tradi-
tional artistic media of painting and print-making.
Acceptance of the advances made by members of
the New School was not universal, particularly
within those organizations with a strong following
among the conservative or Old School photogra-
phers. This Old School objected to the pictorialist
aesthetic as bad photography, objected to the dom-
ination of their societies by photographers of the
New School with such views, and felt a loss of
opportunities to show their own work in club exhi-
bitions. In the United States this was the case when
conservative members of the Photographic Society
of Philadelphia regained control of the organization
after several years of domination by members with
New School points of view. That Society’s Philadel-
phia Photographic Salon, led by the New School,
had been a leading venue for exhibiting the newer
pictorial photography. In turn Stieglitz and other
members of the New School boycotted the more
conservative salon held after this retrenchment.
Out of these divisions, and a similar situation within
the Camera Club of New York where Alfred Stie-
glitz was a member, the Photo-Secession was born.‘‘American Pictorial Photography Arranged by
the ‘Photo-Secession’’’
When Stieglitz announced the Photo-Secession in
March 1902 he had for several years been consider-
ing how to create such a group to serve the needs of
pictorial photographers inclined to the aesthetics of
the New School. Disagreements within the Camera
Club of New York led Stieglitz to resign his posi-
tion as vice-president. Objections to the emphasis
on pictorialist topics in that Club’s quarterly jour-
nalCamera Notesled him to resign as editor of the
publication, which he had also founded. Stieglitz
chose the opportunity of the March 1902 exhibi-
tion of pictorialist photography that he had orga-
nized for the National Arts Club in New York to
announce the formation of the Photo-Secession.
But when that exhibition, ‘‘American Pictorial
Photography Arranged by the ‘Photo-Secession’,’’
an exhibition of more than 160 photographs by 32
prominent photographers, was announced the only
members of the Photo-Secession were Stieglitz and
perhaps those members of theCamera Notesedi-
torial staff who had resigned with Stieglitz—Joseph
T. Keiley, Dallet Fuguet, and John Francis Strauss.Photo-Secession Principles, Organization, and
Goals
In the early months of its existence the Photo-Secession
was an organization in name only. When pressed by
the photographic community to explain the purposes
of the group, Stieglitz responded by simply stating that
the objectives of the Photo-Secession were to serve the
cause of pictorial photography, to unite American
photographers and those interested in pictorial photo-
graphy, and to hold exhibitions of work by its mem-
bers and others. Soon other photographers exhibited
at the National Arts Club joined with Stieglitz.PHOTO-SECESSION