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Recto of print -
Recto of print with original mount -
Verso of original mount -
Photomicrograph showing print surface under raking light (scale bar is in millimeters) -
Photomicrograph showing print surface under raking light (scale bar is in micrometers) -
A photogravure reproduction of this work in Camera Work -
A photogravure reproduction of this work in Camera Work -
Exhibition view showing a print of the work in Beginnings and Landmarks at An American Place (1937) -
An earlier, photogravure version of this work
Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
The Hand of Man, 1902, printed 1920/39
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949.703
This photograph, taken from the back of a moving train, was published in the first issue of Camera Work, in January 1903. A note in the issue explained the image as conveying not a contrast between man and machine, but rather a link between art and the everyday: “The Hand of Man by Alfred Stieglitz, the last plate in this number, is an attempt to treat pictorially a subject which enters so much into our daily lives that we are apt to lose sight of the pictorial possibilities of the commonplace.”[1] Compared with the earlier photogravure print of this image (1949.850), dominated by the atmospheric effects of smoke and clouds, this print of the image focuses on the crisp lines of the train tracks.
Additional resources related to this object are to the right. Comprehensive material analysis is found in the Object Research PDF.
[1] “The Pictures in This Number,” Camera Work 1 (Jan. 1903), p. 63.
