Photo-Secession

To strengthen his position, Stieglitz rapidly formed an invitation-only group, which he called the Photo-Secession, to give the impression that his views were backed by many other prominent photographers.

Although he later claimed that he had “enlisted the aid of the then newly organized and limited ‘Photo-Secession’," in fact there was no such group until he formed it on February 17, 1902, just two weeks before the show at the National Arts Club was scheduled to open.

[2] Stieglitz corresponded frequently with Fritz Matthies-Masuren,[3] who wrote an essay in the catalog for the Munich exhibition, and he was captivated by the thought of photographers defining their own art form.

Stieglitz’s sole role in forming and tightly controlling the Photo-Secession was made clear by two exchanges that took place at the opening of the National Arts Club show.

The photographers included in the first exhibition were C. Yarnell Abbott, Prescott Adamson, Arthur E. Becher, Charles I. Berg, Alice Boughton, John G. Bullock, Rose Clark and Elizabeth Flint Wade, F. Colburn Clarke, F. Holland Day, Mary M. Devens, William B. Dyer, Thomas M. Edmiston, Frank Eugene, Dallett Fuguet, Tom Harris, Gertrude Käsebier, Joseph T. Keily, Mary Morgan Keipp, Oscar Maurer, William B.

Post, Robert S. Redfield, W. W. Renwick, Eva Watson-Schütze, T. O'Conor Sloane, Jr., Ema Spencer, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Edmund Stirling, Henry Troth, Mathilde Weil and Clarence H. White.