Back of Little House 1934

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, "Back of Little House," using gelatin silver print. I can’t help but think about what Stieglitz was thinking when he took this picture. There’s this weather vane pointing in some direction, but it's hard to know exactly where. Was he thinking about a particular place? The back of the little house itself is like a painting, with its layers of textures and details. I like the repetition of lines with the weatherboards and the slats of the blind in the window. It reminds me a little of some of those early modernist painters like Charles Sheeler or even the precision of someone like Agnes Martin. This photograph feels like a conversation between the past and the present. It captures a moment in time, but it also points to something timeless about human experience, the way we build homes and lives within the elements. Stieglitz is part of this big, ongoing conversation that artists have across time.