“A RELAXED, UNTIDY, SOMEWHAT SELF-INDULGENT, WISE VISIONARY”: RARE VINTAGE GELATIN SILVER PRINT OF ALFRED STIEGLITZ, 1938, SIGNED BY LOTTE JACOBI ON THE MAT

(STIEGLITZ, Alfred) JACOBI, Lotte. Photograph. Signed mat. Alfred Stieglitz. New York, circa 1938. Vintage gelatin silver print (measures 8 by 10 inches), signed on recto of mat, entire piece measures 17 by 15 inches. $7800.

Vintage gelatin silver print of Stieglitz, with a large mat signed in the lower corner by Jacobi in her trademark pencil, from a photograph taken at Stieglitz’ New York gallery in 1938, this wonderful portrait capturing the warmth of the legendary American photographer whose work vitally encouraged Jacobi “to develop her personal style and artistic voice.”

“The personalities whom Lotte Jacobi captured with her camera were among the most influential of their times” (Otto Steinert). This rare vintage gelatin silver print of renowned photographer Alfred Stieglitz, with its mat signed in the lower corner by Jacobi, was one of several taken at his gallery “An American Place in 1938. In them he is a relaxed, untidy, somewhat self-indulgent, wise visionary” (Wise, 25). In this wonderful portrait Jacobi’s respect for Stieglitz is both profound and engagingly offhand. While crafting her art in Berlin during the 1920s, Jacobi had “found artistic kinship in… Stieglitz, whose work she devotedly studied.” It was through her immersion in Berlin’s vibrant art world and her contact with “those whose work Stieglitz published in Camera Work that Jacobi began to develop her personal style and artistic voice” (Sundstrom, 5). Jacobi visited Stieglitz not long after fleeing Germany in the late 1930s, and “remained dedicated to Stieglitz” throughout her life, once dismissing those who belittled his work by commenting: “That doesn’t tell us anything about Stieglitz. It only says something about the people” (Moriarty, 44). Here, as in much of her finest work, “Jacobi’s spontaneous approach allows us to appreciate the appeal of her subjects as singular personalities. Such a method, relying on intuition and improvisation, requires considerable self-assurance… Jacobi was most playful in her photography when the subject’s vitality challenged her to overcome the static nature of the medium” (Eskilden & Stein). Wise, 112. White 145. From the estate of Lotte Jacobi.

A fine vintage print, with scarce signed mat.