In 1934, Arthur Dove paid tribute to Alfred Stieglitz, writing, “I couldn’t have existed as a painter without that super-encouragement.” Indeed, it is doubtful that many other early modernists in America would have survived and flourished without Stieglitz; their history is inconceivable without him. His profound impact as artist and catalyst for modern art both here and abroad was made abundantly clear in a landmark exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, “Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries,” organized by the museum’s curator of photographs, Sarah Greenough.¹

We already know a great deal about Stieglitz, of course. He has been the subject of numerous exhibitions, as well as many specialized studies by William Innes Homer, Elizabeth Hutton Turner, and Ms. Greenough herself, among others. Of the many efforts devoted to Stieglitz, though, “Modern Art and America” was the largest and most comprehensive, the first attempt to show Stieglitz the artist side by side with the European and American artists he exhibited and championed at his several galleries in New York from 1905 until his death in 1946. The voluminous catalogue—for which, I should state for the record, I wrote an essay on Arthur Dove—will be an indispensable reference.

The exhibition set high standards, opened new perspectives, and posed timely questions for the study of early modernism in America.

The exhibition set high standards, opened new perspectives, and posed timely questions for the study of early modernism in America. It was