Water Lilies

Artist:: Adolf de Meyer (American (born France), Paris 1868–1946 Los Angeles, California)

Date:: ca. 1906, printed 1912

Medium:: Platinum print

Dimensions:: 26.1 x 35.2cm (10 1/4 x 13 7/8in.) Mount: 45.7 x 27.6cm (18 x 10 7/8in.)

Classification:: Photographs

Credit Line:: Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1933

Accession Number:: 33.43.234

Not on view

Perhaps as a diversion from his principal subject, portraiture, de Meyer took a series of flower studies about 1906. Struck by their beauty, Käsebier and Steichen collected some prints for themselves, which Stieglitz also admired. Soon, a de Meyer exhibition was mounted at the Photo-Secession Galleries that included several of the flower pieces, including Water Lilies, a composition that focuses attention on the reflection and refraction of light more than on the flowers themselves.

Inscription: Signed in pencil on mount, recto, BR; "DEMEYER [underlined and with ornamental embellishments]"; inscribed in pencil on mount, recto, BL: "Waterlilies 94"; inscribed in pencil on mount, verso, BC: "94".

Alfred Stieglitz

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz," May 18, 1978–July 16, 1978.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Photographs from the Museum's Collection," December 4, 1984–March 17, 1985.

International Center of Photography. "Baron Adolf de Meyer," December 10, 1994–February 12, 1995.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Paul Strand and His Contemporaries," February 10, 1998–May 31, 1998.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Pictorialism in New York, 1900-1915," February 10, 1998–May 31, 1998.

Vancouver Art Gallery. "TruthBeauty: Pictorialism and the Golden Age of Photography," February 2, 2008–April 27, 2008.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Photographic Treasures from the Collection of Alfred Stieglitz," October 13, 2011–February 26, 2012.

Stieglitz, Alfred, ed. Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly 24 (October 1908). no. II.

Naef, Weston J. The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz: Fifty Pioneers of Modern Photography. Studio Book. 1st ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978. no. 216.

Ehrenkranz, Anne. A Singular Elegance: The Photographs of Baron Adolph de Meyer. New York: International Center of Photography, 1994. pp. 50–51.

Nordström, Allison. TruthBeauty: Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art, 1845–1945. Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery, 2008. p. 15.

Timelines
The United States and Canada, 1900 A.D.–present

"The Art of Seeing: Photographs from the Alfred Stieglitz Collection": The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 35, no. 4 (Spring, 1978)
The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz: Fifty Pioneers of Modern Photography

Department

Photographs (36,108)

Artist / Maker / Culture

Adolf de Meyer (93)

Object Type / Material

Photographs (46,374)

Platinum prints (1,148)

Geographic Location

North and Central America (92,416)

United States (88,099)