The Stieglitz Circle

The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden is pleased to present The Stieglitz Circle, the fourteenth annual Sheldon Statewide exhibition. Sheldon Statewide is a unique collaboration between the Sheldon Gallery, the Nebraska Art Association (a nonprofit volunteer membership organization dedicated to the advancement of the visual arts in Nebraska) and the efforts and cooperation of the many Nebraska communities that serve as exhibition venues. The mission of the Sheldon Gallery is the acquisition, exhibition, and interpretation of 19th- and 20th-century American art. Each year twenty works from the collection are circulated throughout the state of Nebraska. The 2000-2001 Sheldon Statewide exhibition focuses on the works of some of the earliest Americans to embrace Modernism, many of whom were promoted by photographer and gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz. Shaping the New York art world and contributing to the rise of avant-garde culture in the era before the Depression, Stieglitz is without a doubt one of the most important single figures in the development of Modernism in America. The Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession opened its doors on November 25, 1905. Better known as 291 because of its Fifth Avenue address in New York, it became a central gathering place for some of the most significant names of the American avant-garde who looked upon 291 as a safe harbor amidst a sea of anti-modernist hostility in the visual arts. Because art galleries had generally rejected photography, Stieglitz envisioned a space in which photography could be measured in juxtaposition to other media. From this combination of his passionate spirit with specific knowledge of the aesthetic revolutions of his time, he gained the power to change the course of American art and taste