291 (art Gallery) - 291 Is Born (1908)

291 Is Born (1908)

Stieglitz thought that his gallery was finished, but unknown to him a recent acquaintance named Paul Haviland emerged from studies at Harvard, learned about the closure of the gallery, and used some of his family's wealth to sign a three-year lease for a small space directly across the hall from the old gallery. After some convincing by Haviland that the new space was workable, Stieglitz gathered some other friends and came up with additional funds for utilities, supplies, printing and framing.

The new gallery space, which measured only fifteen feet square, was actually located in the next building on the block at 293 Fifth Avenue. The wall between the two buildings had been removed during a previous renovation, however, so by all appearances the new gallery seemed to share the same address as the old one.

Perhaps to save money on printing and perhaps because of his affection for the old gallery, Stieglitz wanted the new address to remain "291". Both Haviland and he, however, agreed that the previous name of "Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession" was no longer appropriate. They wanted the new space to be about more than photography. Later, Stieglitz would write "We are dealing, not with a society, not with an organization, as much as with a movement. The Secession is not so much a school or a following as an attitude towards life; and its motto seems to be: 'Give every man who claims to have a message for the world a chance of being heard.' "

From thenceforth Stieglitz referred to the gallery as "291", without the street name or other descriptive title. However, some of the original members of the Photo-Secession did not appreciate the name change and especially the thinking that led to it. Stieglitz's old friends Gertrude Käsebier and Clarence H. White saw it as the last straw in a series of autocratic moves by Stieglitz, and soon a series of increasingly bitter arguments broke out among the three of them. At one point Stieglitz wrote "To my dismay, jealousies soon became rampant among photographers around me, an exact repetition of the situation I rebelled against at the Camera Club. Various Secessionists were in danger of harming not only each other but what I was attempting to build and demonstrate. I found, too, that the very institutionalism, commercialism and self-seeking I most opposed were actually favored by certain members." These differences of opinion were to increase over the next two years, exacerbated in part by Stieglitz's stubbornness and his refusal to include many of his long-time photographer friends in decisions about the direction of the new gallery.

Meanwhile, Steichen returned to the U.S. in February 1908 with a new group of photos for a show to be held at the galley the following month. More importantly, he brought with him a group of prints lent to him by Henri Matisse, who at that time little known outside of France. Stieglitz promptly assembled the prints for a show at in the new space. It was the first show of any work by Matisse in the United States and the first one-man show for the artist outside of Paris, and it marked the turning point in the focus of the gallery. After this show, 291 was known much less for photography and much more as a leading force for modern art in America. Moreover, Stieglitz continued to make sure that the gallery was not just an exhibition space; he strongly believed in its original mission as being an educational facility and meeting place for those with avant-garde ideas. Describing the Matisse exhibition, he wrote "Here was the work of a new man, with new ideas – a very anarchist, it seemed, in art. The exhibition led to many heated controversies; it proved stimulating."