The Steerage
Photographer: Alfred Stieglitz
Date: 1907
Location: Aboard SS Kaiser Wilhelm II (likely anchored at Plymouth, England)
Alfred Stieglitz photographed passengers in the steerage — the lower-class section — of the SS Kaiser Wilhelm II while he was traveling in first class on a transatlantic voyage from New York to Bremen, Germany, in 1907. Looking down from the first-class deck, Stieglitz was struck by the visual geometry of the scene: the gangway, the round pipe, the straw hats, the stairs, and the crowd below creating an almost abstract composition. He had only one unexposed plate left and used it for the shot. Published in his journal Camera Work in 1911, 'The Steerage' is considered a masterpiece of modernist photography and a pivotal work in the transition from pictorialism to modernism. Pablo Picasso reportedly said that when he first saw the image, he felt a kinship with Stieglitz's breaking of established compositional rules. The photograph is held at the Art Institute of Chicago.
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