First Steichen Exhibition, Main Room—Photo-Secession Gallery 1906

This photograph by Alfred Stieglitz documents the Photo-Secession Gallery, during the first exhibition of works by Edward Steichen, sometime around 1905. The tonal range is so subtle, the photographic process so clearly embraced, that the room’s contents verge on dissolving into a wash of greys. I love how Stieglitz captures the details, from the globe lights hanging from the ceiling, to the fabric draped along the walls, to the pictures by Steichen installed salon style. These are all impressions in a limited palette. The dark frames around each photograph make them feel solid against the lightness of the walls. The eye wanders to the fresh-cut branches, sitting in a metal vase, that gives a real sense of the gallery as a living, breathing space. This image reminds me so much of the quiet interiors of Vilhelm Hammershøi, the Danish painter who was roughly contemporary with Stieglitz. Both offer such a personal, and perhaps melancholic, vision of the art space. As ever, there’s so much beauty to be found in the understated.