About this artwork
Although she began making photographs only at age 37, Gertrude Käsebier’s evocative images of marriage and motherhood quickly attracted Alfred Stieglitz, who published five of her first prints in his quarterly journal Camera Work. A founding member of his Photo-Secession movement, Käsebier staged simple, painterly compositions and produced exquisite handmade prints in the Pictorialist tradition. In this portrait, her friend Agnes Lee sits alone before a rocky landscape, grieving the recent death of her daughter. Drawing from her own unhappy marriage and experience as a mother, Käsebier staged a contemporary Lamentation scene, though its abstract title suggests a more universal statement about the trials and sorrows of motherhood.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Photography and Media
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Artist
- Gertrude Käsebier
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Title
- Heritage of Motherhood
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Place
- United States (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- Made 1904
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Medium
- Platinum print
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Inscriptions
- Signed recto, on image, lower right, in brown ink: "GERTRUDE KÄSEBIER."; verso unchecked
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Dimensions
- Image/paper: 23 × 29.2 cm (9 1/16 × 11 1/2 in.)
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Credit Line
- Gift of Mina Turner
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Reference Number
- 1973.6
Extended information about this artwork
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