The Steerage is a black-and-white photograph made by Alfred Stieglitz in 1907, depicting men, women and children crowded on the lower steerage deck of an ocean liner, framed by the ship's stairway, funnel and gangway into a tightly interlocking geometric composition. Stieglitz took the picture while traveling from New York to Europe, so despite its later popular reading as an image of immigrants being turned away from America, the passengers shown were more likely returning laborers on temporary visas rather than rejected arrivals. Regarded as one of the first photographs valued for its formal, almost abstract structure as much as for its documentary subject, it is widely credited as a founding image of photographic modernism.
Facts
Year Created MediumBlack and white photograph 1 Connections
Sources
1. The Steerage (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIntroduction, sentence 1 (medium)
The Steerage is a black and white photograph taken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1907.
Introduction, sentence 1 (creation year)
The Steerage is a black and white photograph taken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1907.
Genre reference
The Steerage is a black-and-white photograph made by Alfred Stieglitz in 1907, depicting men, women and children crowded on the lower steerage deck of an ocean liner, framed by the ship's stairway, funnel and gangway into a tightly interlocking geometric composition.
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