291 andCamera Workeventually showed important
modernist artworks of all kinds—paintings, draw-
ings, sculptures—Stieglitz acted as a champion of
modernism in general and thus linked the mission
of photography with that of the fine arts. Stieglitz’s
Equivalents, sky photographs done in the early
1920s, were powerful examples for aesthetic-minded
practitioners later in the century.
Edward Steichen (1879–1973) was a romantic-
minded Pictorialist photographer and a tireless lieu-
tenant for Stieglitz’s Photo-Secession andCamera
Workmagazine. Besides taking some of the most
memorable images of the era, he also made masterful
portraits of famous figures. He became a well-known
commercial photographer in the 1920s and 1930s
and, as an officer in the Navy during World War
II, was responsible for tactical aerial photography.
His later career is marked by his organization (as
director of the Department of Photography, Mu-
seum of Modern Art [MoMA], New York) of the
1955 Family of Manexhibition.
WomenalsomadestrongcontributionstoPictor-
ial photography. The pioneering woman photogra-
pher Gertrude Ka ̈sebier (1852–1934) was a founding
member of Stieglitz’s Photo-Secession and is re-
nowned for her images of mother and child. Alice
Boughton’s (1865–1943) long career was devoted to
portraiture cast, like Ka ̈sebier’s, in a Pictorialist
style. Another pioneering female photographer was
Anne (Annie) W. Brigman (1869–1950), a Photo-
Secessionist whose female nudes set in California
mountain landscapes were unique.
Though his most important works were made in
a Pictorialist mode, Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882–
1966) is credited with making some of the first
purely abstract photographs in the medium’s his-
tory, sometime around 1916. Shooting through a
kaleidoscopic mirror device on his camera, he
called the resulting pictures ‘‘Vortographs,’’ after
the English abstract movement Vorticism. He also
photographed the geometry of the New York City.
Francis Bruguie`re (1879–1945) also conducted
abstract and experimental effects in photography
as seen in his 1920s images of cut paper shapes.
Alexandr Rodchenko (1891–1956) was dedicated
to the social and aesthetic mission of Russian Con-
structivism. Besides taking important photographs,
Rodchenko was an influential graphic designer,
painter, and filmmaker. He was connected with
many major culture figures of his time. He is remem-
bered for his images of parades, construction sites,
sports, and the circus often taken from unconven-
tional points of view. Another Constructivist photo-
grapher and designer was El Lissitzky (1890–1940)
who used photomontage and photographic exhibi-
tions to promote the principles of good design and
utopian ideals.
Academically trained as an artist, and influenced
by the natural philosophy of his day, Karl Blossfeldt
(1865–1932) is known for his close-up photos of plant
forms. These were published in the bookUrformen
der Kunst(Archetypes of Art) (1928), an important
example of the 1930s art style known as Neue
Sachlichkeit(New Objectivity). The work of Albert
Renger-Patzsch (1897–1966) is also linked to this
style by virtue of his close-up images of machine
parts, plants, shells, and other design-inherent sub-
jects. His book,The World is Beautiful(1928) featured
a hundred of his own images. The photographer/
painter/filmmaker and designer, La ́szlo ́ Moholy-
Nagy (1895–1946) was a leader in his philosophy of
photography, in the advanced nature of his own pic-
tures, and in his teaching. His book,The New Vision:
From Material to Architecture(1930), was a key land-
mark inNeue Sehenor ‘‘New Vision’’ photography.
An impassioned, intellectual teacher, from 1923
Moholy-Nagy taught light and color at the renowned
design school, the Dessau Bauhaus. After emigrating
to America, he founded the New Bauhaus (later the
Institute of Design) in Chicago in 1937. Moholy-
Nagy’s own photography is comprised of abstract
‘‘photograms,’’ photomontages, and daringly formal
photographs. The geometric, semi-abstract photo-
graphs of Florence Henri (1895–1982) seem to em-
body Moholy-Nagy’s principles.
Associated with the Dada and Surrealist groups
of the 1920s and 1930s, Man Ray (1890–1976)
used photography to make important avant-
garde art, e.g., his ‘‘Rayographs,’’ as he called his
camera-less pictures. Lee Miller (1907–1997), Man
Ray’s model in the 1920s, became an important
photographer in her own right and was witness
and participant to many of Man Ray’s innovations
(e.g., solarization). In the 1920s and 1930s, Man
Ray also produced innovative fashion photogra-
phy. Man Ray’s career spanned New York and
Europe, photography and the fine arts, and the
world of fashion and Hollywood.
Similarly, Bill Brandt (1904–1983) brought a lyri-
cal surrealist vision to images of the English working
class and, later, to distorted female nudes. Working
in Man Ray’s studio for three months, Brandt devel-
oped a taste for formal experimentation. His books,
The English at Home(1936) andA Night in London
(1938) were instrumental to subsequent generations
of socially concerned photo-documentarians.
Hungarian e ́migre ́Brassaı ̈’s (1899–1984) images
of the nightlife of Paris have become so well known
that many visitors’ experience of that city has been
shaped by them. He photographed the cafe ́ deni-HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY: TWENTIETH-CENTURY PIONEERS