Looking North from Room 3003—Shelton Hotel, New York
1927
Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
sheet (trimmed to image): 12.1 x 9.4 cm (4 3/4 x 3 11/16 in.) mount: 31.5 x 24.8 cm (12 3/8 x 9 3/4 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Alfred Stieglitz Collection
Accession Number
1949.3.1194
Rights
Public Domain
Art Historical Context
This gelatin silver print from 1927 offers a compact yet compelling glimpse of New York City as seen from Alfred Stieglitz’s room at the Shelton Hotel. The modest dimensions of the image—trimmed closely to the photograph itself—encourage viewers to lean in and study the layered urban forms stretching northward, turning an everyday hotel-window view into a carefully framed study of the modern metropolis. Stieglitz, a central figure in establishing photography as a fine art, employed the gelatin silver process for its ability to render crisp detail and luminous tonal range. In this work the med...
About the Artist
Alfred Stieglitz · 1864–1946
Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) was a pioneering American photographer, art dealer, publisher, and advocate for the Modernist movement who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to German Jewish immigrant parents, Stieglitz spent his formative years studying mechanical engineering in Berlin, where he discovered photography in ...