The Steerage

Artist Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864 - 1946)

Date1907; printed 1913

MediumPhotogravure

DimensionsImage: 13 1/16 × 10 3/8 inches (33.18 × 26.35 cm)
Sheet: 18 1/4 × 12 9/16 inches (46.36 × 31.91 cm)

Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Object number2005.27.403

Signednone

Inscribednone

Markingsnone

On View

Not on view

Collections

Photography

Terms

DescriptionImage of men, women, and children on the lower deck of a boat. A stairway leads to an upper deck also crowded with people and a narrow drawbridge with railing made of circular chains extends across the center of the image.
Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Rotation 1. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, June 17 – October 25, 2007, no cat.

Gallery Label

Alfred Stieglitz made The Steerage on a voyage from New York City to Germany. Fascinated by the social contrast between the well-to-do passengers on the upper deck and the poorer ones below in steerage class, Stieglitz constructed the image to show this social division. He later emphasized the image’s formal inventiveness: its bold geometry and shifting sense of space.

Provenance

Hallmark Cards, Inc., 1984;
Given by Hallmark Cards, Inc. to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2005.

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