Heinrich Kuehn and the Photo-Secession: Selected Works
Hans P. Kraus Jr. Fine Photographs will present Heinrich Kuehn and the Photo-Secession: Selected Works from 23 May through 29 June 2012. This exhibition complements two current exhibitions in New York City: Heinrich Kuehn and his American Circle at the Neue Galerie and Heinrich Kuehn:Viennese Photo-Secessionist at Howard Greenberg Gallery. Kuehn, an Austrian photographer, was influential in the Pictorialist movement, which strove to create photography that would be accepted as fine art. More than 25 photographs, from 1845-1914, will be on view at Hans P. Kraus Jr. Fine Photographs. In addition to the work of Kuehn, the exhibition includes Alvin Landgon Coburn, Frederick Evans, George Seeley, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, and Hans Watzek, as well as earlier masters of photography Julia Margaret Cameron and Hill & Adamson who inspired the Pictorialists. Before the turn of the 20th century, the Pictorialists experimented with processes and manipulated the photographic image to create tonalities and textures that resembled drawings, prints or paintings. They consciously distanced themselves from earlier approaches to photography that, they felt, emphasized scientific and technical expertise over artistic expression. Heinrich Kuehn (1866-1944) was at the forefront of this movement in Vienna, which included his colleague Hans Watzek (1848-1903) and others.
