Art Institute of Chicago

The Terminal

Alfred Stieglitz

Date

1893, printed 1920/39

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Culture

United States

Department

Photography and Media

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Stieglitz took this photograph in front of the Old Post Office in New York, where the Third Avenue railway system and the Madison Avenue streetcar system had their terminals. He reflected on his creation of the work 45 years later: “Naturally there was snow on the ground. A driver in a rubber coat was watering his steaming horses. There seemed to be something related to my deepest feeling in what I saw, and I decided to photograph what was within me.” For Stieglitz, who had returned from Europe to find that everyday use of the Kodak camera had supplanted serious photography, The Terminal represented new possibilities for photography and the hope for “an America in which I could breathe as a free man.” For more on the Alfred Stieglitz collection at the Art Institute, along with in-depth object information, please visit the website: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection .

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