Gallery 291 - photo-secession gallery
DEFINITION
Located at 291 Fifth Avenue in New York City and usually referred to as "291", this Gallery was opened in 1905 by photographer Alfred Stieglitz with the original goal being to exhibit photography. But in 1907, Stieglitz broadened the scope to include avant-garde painting, sculpture and graphic arts with the hope of showing that photography could hold its own on an equal level with the other visual arts. Gallery 291 then became the center of contemporary, leading-edge American and European art in America with the first American exhibitions of work by Auguste Rodin, Henri Matisse, and Paul Cezanne, Pablo Picasso and Constantin Brancusi. From 1909, American modernists were featured including Marsden Hartley, Alfred Maurer, John Marin, Arthur Carles, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Max Weber, Elie Nadelman, Arthur Dove, and Georgia O'Keeffe, whom Steiglitz married and promoted her career. From 1903 to 1917, "Camera Work" was the Gallery's official publication. Gallery 291 closed in 1917 when the building was torn down. Successor galleries opened by Steiglitz were Anderson Galleries from 1925 to 1929, and An American Place from 1920 to 1946. Source: "Phaidon Dictionary of Twentieth Century Art"