PHOTO-SECESSION GROUP

the first important group of U.S. photographers that worked to get photography accepted as an art form. Led by Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), the group also included Edward Steichen (1879-1973), Clarence H. White (1871-1925), Gertrude Ksebier (1852-1934), and Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1966). These photographers broke away from the Camera Club of New York in 1902 and pursued techniques of manipulating negatives and printing paper to approximate the effects of drawings, etchings, and oil paintings. The Photo-Secession Group actively promoted its ideas. Stieglitz edited and published the important quarterly Camera Work and opened the Little Gallery (also known as the Photo-Secession Gallery and "291" from its address on Fifth Avenue), providing the group with a place to exhibit their work. In 1910 the Photo-Secession sponsored an international show of more than 500 photographs by its members or photographers whose aims were similar to its own. The show, occupying more than half of the exhibition space at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, was a sensation and significantly advanced the acceptance of photography as an art form. By 1910, however, the members of the Photo-Secession had become divided. Some continued to manipulate their negatives and prints to achieve nonphotographic effects, while others came to feel that such manipulation destroyed tone and texture and was inappropriate to photography. Torn by this division, the group soon dissolved.