Stieglitz, Alfred. Exhibition of Photographs by Alfred Stieglitz. March 15 to April 27, 1958.

National Gallery of Art, 1958. Lengthy biographical essay by Doris Bry. 16 plates, plus cover illustration. Includes checklist of 108 works in the exhibition, chronology, and bibliography. Wraps, bent corner, thin spot on back cover. Increasingly uncommon exhibition catalog of a selection of prints from the "key set" of Stieglitz' photographs donated by Georgia O'Keeffe after the photographer's death in 1946. A landmark exhibition. Good.  Summary:

Exhibition of Photographs by Alfred Stieglitz (1958) is a landmark historical exhibition catalog published by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., to document a definitive retrospective held from March 15 to April 27, 1958. This publication stands as a crucial monument in mid-century photographic scholarship, representing the first major museum valuation of Stieglitz’s work following his death in 1946.

Key Elements of the Work

• The "Key Set" Context: The catalog archives a selection of 108 master prints drawn directly from the ultimate "Key Set"—the definitive collection of Stieglitz's finest prints presented to the National Gallery of Art by his widow, painter Georgia O'Keeffe.

• Authoritative Scholarship: The volume features a comprehensive biographical and critical essay by Doris Bry, a preeminent Stieglitz scholar and O’Keeffe’s long-time archival associate. Bry’s text serves as a foundational historical record, contextualizing Stieglitz’s lifelong battle to elevate photography to an equal footing with the fine arts.

• Visual Representation: The publication includes 16 high-quality black-and-white plates that map out the trajectory of Stieglitz’s career. It moves from his early European and New York street scenes to his experimental, abstract Equivalents cloud series and his raw portrait studies.

• Reference Infrastructure: To aid researchers and institutions, the catalog compiles an exhaustive, early artist chronology and a structured bibliography, acting as a baseline for all subsequent late-20th-century Stieglitz research.

Narrative Intent

The publication functions as an institutional canonization of Alfred Stieglitz. By exhibiting and cataloging his work within the halls of the National Gallery of Art, the publication permanently shifted Stieglitz from a radical contemporary instigator to a classic, codified pillar of modern American cultural history.