Highlights of the Key Set

Below are some highlights from the Alfred Stieglitz Key Set.

  • A woman with light skin wearing a long, corseted dress with a full skirt and a wide-brimmed, feathered hat sits writing or drawing at a round table next to an open window in this vertical, black and white photograph. Light coming in through the window to our left creates slanting stripes of light and shadow across the table and the wall opposite us, suggesting it filters through blinds or slats. The woman sits in a straight-backed, wooden chair with a caned back. We see the curve of her cheek and the tip of her nose as she bends slightly over the paper and pen. Her hair is pulled back in a bun at the back of her head under the hat, and her dark dress has a wide lace collar. The table is covered with a patterned cloth and holds a tall candlestick with a twisted candle, an ink bottle, a small, lidded jar, and a picture of a woman in a frame decorated with daisies. On the wall opposite us, six photographs or drawings hang on the wall. Two of them show landscapes, three show a woman or women, and one shows a man. Three heart-shaped decorations tied with bows hang among the other papers and a bird cage hangs to our right. The wallpaper has a dense, brocade-like floral pattern. The windowpanes swing into the room to our left, and a sliver of an open doorway lines the right edge. The top and bottom zones of the photograph are swallowed in deep shadow.

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Georgia O'Keeffe

Lake George

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A Life's Work

See over 1,600 works of art from Stieglitz's lifetime donated to the National Gallery of Art by his wife, Georgia O'Keeffe.

Browse the Key Set