ticketsMember | Make a donation

William M. Ivins, Jr.

ca. 1910
Not on view
The Metropolitan Museum established a Prints Department in 1916, with thirty-five-year-old William M. Ivins Jr. as its first curator. During the next thirty years he built the Museum’s print collection into the most important in America, amassing not only the great works of acknowledged masters but all manner of printed images that would reveal "the whole gamut of human life and endeavor, from the most ephemeral of courtesies to the loftiest pictorial presentation of man’s spiritual aspirations." His all-encompassing view of the graphic arts included photography.
Ivins knew Stieglitz, admired his work, and visited his galleries for a decade before becoming Curator of Prints. Stieglitz’s long association with the Museum and his central role in the promotion of photography as art made it natural that Ivins would join forces with him to introduce photography into the Met’s Prints Department.
It may well have been through Stieglitz that Ivins met Käsebier, a leading Pictorialist photographer at the turn of the century and the subject of the first issue of Camera Work. Appropriately, she portrayed him here as a scholar and connoisseur wholly absorbed by the printed page.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: William M. Ivins, Jr.
  • Artist: Gertrude Käsebier (American, 1852–1934)
  • Date: ca. 1910
  • Medium: Platinum print
  • Dimensions: Image: 7 5/8 × 5 5/16 in. (19.3 × 13.5 cm)
    Sheet: 7 5/8 × 5 5/16 in. (19.3 × 13.5 cm)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Gift of Barbara Ivins, 1984
  • Object Number: 1984.1024.1
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

More Artwork

More Artwork
A slider containing 5 items.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.
Mother and Child
Gertrude Käsebier
1899
Turner Family, Woburn, Massachusetts, Gertrude Käsebier American, Gelatin silver print on tissue
Turner Family, Woburn, Massachusetts
Gertrude Käsebier
ca. 1910
Auguste Rodin, Gertrude Käsebier American, Platinum print
Auguste Rodin
Gertrude Käsebier
Auguste Rodin
1907
Baron Adolf de Meyer, Gertrude Käsebier American, Platinum print
Baron Adolf de Meyer
Gertrude Käsebier
1903
Mrs. F. H. Evans, Gertrude Käsebier American, Platinum print
Mrs. F. H. Evans
Gertrude Käsebier
Frederick H. Evans
ca. 1901

Related Content

Perspectives

Articles, audio, and video from The Met's online magazine.

Publications

Books, guides, and catalogues published by The Met.

Research Resources

The Met provides unparalleled resources for research and welcomes an international community of students and scholars. The Met's Open Access API is where creators and researchers can connect to the The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.

To request images under copyright and other restrictions, please use this Image Request form.

Feedback

We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.