Photography as Collectible Fine Art

The 1905 opening of Alfred Stieglitz's Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession in New York City is generally acknowledged to be the event that spurred fine art collectors in America to seriously consider photography as authentic art worthy of their consideration. European photographers already sensed that their work was legitimate art, but there still remained much debate over which photographs fell into the classification of artistic pursuit versus documentary evidence of reality.

Weston Naef, curator of photography at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, claims that Alfred Stieglitz "was the first person in America to clearly articulate the potential for photography as a form of creative expression," thereby elevating the consciousness of the American public into acceptance of the medium as a modern fine art form.

Steve Perloff, editor of The Photo Review and publisher of The Photograph Collector, claims that when Stieglitz exhibited his photography alongside prints, paintings and sculpture of Cezanne, Picasso and Matisse, he represented the photographic medium as legitimate fine art of the Modernist movement. Thus, he was able to demonstrate that photography possessed artistic merit through the conveyance of transcendental truths even when purely documentary.

When museums began to acquire photography in the early 1900s, other American institutions followed, advancing its validation as collectible fine art. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston began to acquire photography for its permanent collection in 1924 when it added photographs by Stieglitz. The first acquisition of photography by the Metropolitan Museum of Art came in 1926 with photographic images from the personal collection of Stieglitz. When the New York City Museum of Modern Art began its exhibitions of photography, huge crowds received the medium well as a legitimate Modern Art form.

In 1937, the New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) presented Photography 1839-1937, the first comprehensive exhibition that articulated the first hundred years of the development of photography through an historical context. Photography historian Beaumont Newhall selected 841 items, including scientific, X-ray and infrared photographs which later traveled to ten major museums. The catalogue of photographs by Edward Weston, Atget, Timothy O’Sullivan, Paul Strand, William Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, Matthew Brady and the rest became a teaching resource for generations of students.

In the mid-Fifties, two notable events stand out in the elevation of photography as fine art in the minds of the American public. The first was the 1954 opening of Helen Gee’s Limelight Gallery/Cafe in New York City’s West Village, the first commercial art gallery which dealt exclusively in photography. Basing her design on the European café model, she had a seven year run of approximately seventy shows, setting a standard for future galleries that would offer photography as fine art. The café component helped her survive some very rough years. A few of the photographers showcased at Limelight were Aaron Siskind, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, Bill Brandt, Atget, Paul Caponigro, Arnold Newman, Julia Margaret Cameron and Gene Smith. Limelight was considered an important venue for the viewing of serious photography, as was MOMA, which staged the second significant event of the mid-Fifties.

The Family of Man exhibition at MOMA in 1955 proved to be a turning point in the consciousness of the American public in its perception of photography. This show, mounted by photographer Edward Steichen after four years of preparation, drew an audience of seven million who went away from the show with a new idea of photography. Steichen received more than two million photographs and selected five hundred and three photographs taken by two hundred and seventy-three photographers from sixty-eight countries both professional and amateur. The mission of the exhibition was to demonstrate the "essential oneness of mankind throughout the world" during the Cold War. The photographs selected by Steichen exemplify universal human emotions, traits and experiences such as birth, death, fear, hope, joy, pain, love, work, play and children. Steichen acknowledges this achievement as the “culmination of his career.” Photographs by Dorothea Lange, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Edward Weston, Wayne Miller, Irving Penn, Robert Capra, Jack Delano, Marion Palfi, Alfred Eisenstaedt and Margaret Bourke-White were just a few of the many chosen. The Family of Man exhibition became the most popular and well attended show in the history of photography and it later traveled in several versions to thirty-eight countries. The original exhibition was donated to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg where it is preserved in the Clervaux Museum, fulfilling Steichen’s wish that the “most important work of his life” be permanently housed in his country of origin.

In 1969, Lee Witkin’s Gallery opened in New York and it is celebrated as the first gallery to survive selling fine art photography exclusively. Collector interest grew rapidly in U.S. during the Seventies and Eighties and dealers experienced success in marketing photography as a modern art form instrumental in its definition of culture. The advent of photography’s integration into the permanent collections of museums and private collections of individuals and corporations led to an increase in its perceived value as a modern art form and as a mirror of culture.

Reasons are varied why people invest in the art of photography. Most collectors value one or more characteristics of a photograph, whether historic, aesthetic or emotional. Some individuals and corporations invest in art photography to increase their asset value due to its ability to survive economic downturns. Take for example, the bear market of 1966-1975 when fine art prices rose 256%. Michael Moses and Jianping Mei, professors at NYU Stern School of Business completed a study of twenty-seven recessions since 1875 and found that fine art outperformed the S&P 500 during the past 50 years. Art collectors know that when they buy fine art photography of a limited supply, such as originals or limited edition prints, it will result in long term appreciation of their asset, thus providing more stability than most financial investments in tenuous times. This characteristic makes fine art photography an attractive alternative investment to the stock market which has been known to nosedive at the slightest provocation.

Check back soon to see Lena's next Blog entitled: Investing in Fine Art Photography 101

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