This image is often considered the first masterpiece by Stieglitz, one of the most important figures in the history of photography. Paula Bauschmied, his lover, sits at a table writing, surrounded by Stieglitz’s photographs of her. The light shining through the blinds forms a visual prison over Bauschmied that echoes the birdcage hanging in the corner.

One year later, Stieglitz moved to New York. Assisted by the financial resources of his family, he quickly became an important advocate for pictorialism, organizing photography clubs, exhibitions, a gallery, and periodicals. In the 1910s, Stieglitz left behind the romanticism of pictorialism to direct his considerable influence toward championing modern art, especially as practiced by his eventual wife, Georgia O’Keeffe, and close friend Paul Strand. In later years, Stieglitz looked back at this groundbreaking image and discovered early evidence of his burgeoning modernist vision in the striated pattern of light and shadow.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023)