Great Photographers of the 20th Century

By Artists, I mean photographers who considered photography to be a fine art and sought to advance it as such. What this meant in practice changed rapidly, moving quickly toward images that were as much in sync with the 20th century as art photography in the 19th century was with academic style and sedate salons. Under this theme, I include fashion and studio photography, even if both are mostly commercial. <h2>Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946)</h2> <img alt="" src="https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/1*mgVRCNascRThUx3Sy1pe0Q.jpeg" style="height:868px; width:700px" /> The Steerage, 1907 <img alt="" src="https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/1*sL7SIMRoqoyjOr1RadOqww.jpeg" style="height:467px; width:700px" /> Grand Central Station It’s hard to imagine a canon of photography without Stieglitz. Though he was well-established in the 19th century, his influence in the 20th was even greater. Throughout his life he championed photography as an art — through his own work, his writings, the organizations he led and the galleries he owned. The question of photography as art changed context as the 20th century began. In the early and mid-19thcentury, mainstream painting was pictorial, often romantic. Photographic art imitated this, and the debate was whether photographs could live up to the supposedly superior model of painting. But with impressionism and later modern styles, painting went into territory that photography could not easily follow. Photography was no longer a weaker partner of painting — it had to assume its place as art in its own right. <a href="https://medium.com/live-view/great-photographers-of-the-20th-century-5688b32073c8">Visit Now</a>