Long Underwear, Lake George 1924

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, Long Underwear, Lake George, with a camera, of course. It’s just a small picture. I wonder why he took it. The long underwear is front and center, flapping in the wind, caught on a clothesline, surrounded by trees. It makes me think about mundane daily life, the background hum that surrounds more important or spectacular events. I think Stieglitz was really onto something with this picture. He understood that something as simple as laundry could be beautiful, weird, and resonant. The photograph captures something of the human condition, in its strange mix of beauty and imperfection, like his abstract cloud photographs. The wrinkles in the fabric, the way it hangs on the line—it’s all so human. Maybe he was trying to tell us that art isn't just about grand subjects, but about seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. Stieglitz, like all artists, was in conversation with the world, with himself and with the rest of us.