Georgia O'Keeffe and Donald Davidson 1924

Editor: Here we have Alfred Stieglitz's photograph "Georgia O'Keeffe and Donald Davidson," taken in 1924. It's a gelatin-silver print, featuring O'Keeffe alongside, I presume, Donald Davidson, holding what appears to be gardening tools. There’s a starkness to it that's really striking. What are your thoughts on it? Curator: I see a deliberate commentary on labor and artistic production. Stieglitz, through his photographic process, captures O’Keeffe not as a purely aesthetic muse, but actively engaged – almost literally grounded – with the tools of physical work. Editor: So you’re focusing on the… implements? Curator: Precisely. The shovel, the other tool--what labor do they represent? They speak to a direct connection with the earth, and perhaps hint at a link between the manual labor of gardening and the "labor" involved in making art. Consider also the materials involved – the silver in the gelatin print, the wood of the tools – all part of a chain of production. Stieglitz himself is a part of the labor; the gelatin-silver print connects to industrial and chemical manufacturing practices of early photography. Editor: It's interesting you bring up the print itself. The image makes it so easy to miss how much labour has gone into making this image! Curator: Exactly! What implications arise from this choice of raw and fabricated material? The very creation of the photograph underscores a nexus of labor, consumption and artistry – it moves us far from the idea of purely aesthetic, divinely-inspired creation. This is not some 'genius' at work, rather material, body, action. Editor: I never considered it that way. Thank you for sharing. I’ll be thinking about artistic creation so much differently going forward. Curator: And I will think more deeply about aesthetic creation with these issues of class and context foregrounded in my consciousness.