Mushrooms by the Sea

Alfred Stieglitz

An early photograph by Alfred Stieglitz, published as a photogravure by "The Photographic Times: 1895: July-December." It was printed by E.C. Meinecke in New York. The publication, by Frederick Gutekunst Co. of Philadelphia, published photogravures in the issue by: E.E. Barnard, Charles Berg, Alfred Clements, Constance Parsons, William B. Post and Stieglitz.

A sweetly sentimental departure from pioneering American photographer Alfred Stieglitz’s more well-known, serious oeuvre, Stieglitz captures an intimate moment between a mother and her small child playing in a shallow lip of water by the sea. The moment is fleeting: her foot is raised a bit as if she’s just reaching to find a treasure for the child to admire. The two of them wear woven hats that resemble, as the title suggests, the cheerfully upright caps of mushrooms. This small-format photogravure is from Stieglitz’s early career, published not long after he’d returned to New York from Germany to champion the camera as a tool of the fine art world.