Dorothy Norman 1930

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, Dorothy Norman, sometime in the first half of the 20th century. Look at the tender way Stieglitz has framed Dorothy Norman’s hands. How they appear to be both resting and working, hands are never still, are they? Hands are one of the most challenging things to draw or photograph, maybe because they are so expressive, so much a part of our daily lives. They get chapped. They make things. They hold things together. It's like Stieglitz wanted to get to know her through her hands, which say so much about who she was. I imagine he spent a long time positioning the hands just so, adjusting the light to catch every little detail. It's a very intimate study, in a way, reminiscent of other artists like Rodin, whose fragmented sculptures were so radical. I can only imagine the exchange of ideas and creative energy between them.