We just got back from a weekend visit to this and a South Shore gallery visit in Munster with Adam's museum prints from his daughter's collection.
Quite a point and counter point to see the two back to back. High contrast and sharp on the one hand and lower contrast and textured papers on the other.
I also have seen an original Lodge Pole Pines printed as a platinum print, previously; this was a silver gelatin print with high contrast but soft focus. I preferred the platinum treatment. I spent a long time trying to see signs of burning and dodging and I have always wondered whether the shaft of light is more dodge than not in Winter Sunrise, Sierra Nevada, Lone Pine.
The Art institute collection is superb. A very nice exhibit of several practitioners of the time. Nice to see Day and Coburn and Evans. I thought the prints of white were not very representative, excepting the superb portrait of Stieglitz.
What is particularily interesting is the original enlargement prints of a few prints compared with the silver gelatin contact prints of later years.
One of these is the The Steerage, with a very nice print of the bight hat and walkway, compared to the silver print which has the figures in steerage of similar bright tones as the hat and walkway. To me the recognition of this print as a signpost of modernism is more apparent in the printing than the image.
I should have taken a monopod. as the lighting yielded speeds of 1/30 sec for me.
In would also recommend seeing the 40th Anniversary Exhibit at the Columbia College Museum of Contemporary Photography, about a half mile south of the Art Institute, at 600 S Michigan Avenue, through April 10, 2016. It is free. I was there briefly today and intend to go back several times. There are about 150 photos, most 20th Century. Unfortunately, they are almost collaged floor-to ceiling, so there are not optimal viewing conditions. Still, quite a range of photos.
I enjoyed the exhibit at the AIC. I thought the explanatory panels were a little provincial, however, giving too much credit to Stieglitz for making photography ART. Julia Margaret Cameron had promoted her prints as art, which the exhibit overlooks.
Bob
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