The Photo-Secession was an early 20th century movement that promoted photography as a fine art in general and photographic pictorialism in particular.
A group of photographers, led by Alfred Stieglitz and F. Holland Day in the early 20th century, held the then controversial viewpoint that what was significant about a photograph was not what was in front of the camera but the manipulation of the image by the artist/photographer to achieve his or her subjective vision. The movement helped to raise standards and awareness of art photography.
The group is the American counterpart to the Linked Ring, an invitation-only British group which seceded from the Royal Photographic Society.
Context and history
The group was formed in 1902 after Stieglitz was asked by the National Arts Club to put together an exhibition of the best in contemporary American photography. While organizing the show, Stieglitz had a disagreement with some of the more conservative members of the Club about which photographers should be included. To strengthen his position, Stieglitz rapidly formed an invitation-only group, which he called the Photo-Secession, to give the impression that his views were backed by many other prominent photographers. Although he later claimed that he had “enlisted the aid of the then newly organized and limited ‘Photo-Secession’," in fact there was no such group until he formed it on February 17, 1902, just two weeks before the show at the National Arts Club was scheduled to open.
In naming the group, Stieglitz is thought to have been influenced by the 1898 Munich Secession Exhibition (Verglag des Vereines Bildender Kunstler Muchnes "Sezession"). Stieglitz corresponded frequently with Fritz Matthies-Masuren, who wrote an essay in the catalog for the Munich exhibition, and he was captivated by the thought of photographers defining their own art form. In 1899 he wrote: In Munich, the art-centre of Germany, the 'Secessionists', a body of artists comprising the most advanced and gifted men of their times, who (as the name indicates have broken away from the narrow rules of custom and tradition) have admitted the claims of the pictorial photograph to be judged on its merits as a work of art independently, and without considering the fact that it has been produced through the medium of the camera.
Later in his life, Stieglitz gave this account about the origins of the Photo-Secession: National Arts Club Director Charles DeKay: "What shall we call this [exhibition]?" Stieglitz: "Call it An Exhibition of American Photography arranged by the Photo-Secession". DeKay: "What's that? Who is it?" Stieglitz: "Yours truly, for the present, and there'll be others when the show opens. The idea of Secession is hateful to Americans - they'll be thinking of the Civil War. I'm not. Photo-Secession actually means a seceding from the accepted idea of what constitutes a photograph."
Cultural historian Jay Bochner points out that it is important to look at the Photo-Secession for more than visual aesthetics: What, then, was this secession from? It was not only from artwork that had gone stale through the copying of Victorian, conventional styles, but more importantly from the dictatorship of the entrenched institutions, galleries, art schools and professional art organizations that enforced or at very least sanctioned copying or imitation.
Proponents of Pictorialism, which was the underlying value of the Photo-Secession, argued that photography needed to emulate the painting and etching of the time. Pictorialists believed that, just as a painting is distinctive because of the artist’s manipulation of the materials to achieve an effect, so too should the photographer alter or manipulate the photographic image. Among the methods used were soft focus; special filters and lens coatings; burning, dodging and/or cropping in the darkroom to edit the content of the image; and alternative printing processes such as sepia toning, carbon printing, platinum printing or gum bichromate processing.
Content of the images often referred to previous work done by other artists, especially Greek and Roman art. Images often contained stylistic consistency such as dramatic lighting, perspective, geometry, use of monochrome/black and white, and high contrast.
In founding the Photo-Secession, Stieglitz asserted that it was a “rebellion against the insincere attitude of the unbeliever, of the Philistine, and largely exhibition authorities.” While this was in part true, his actions demonstrated that the creation of the Photo-Secession was also about advancing his own position in the world of photography and art.