Poplars, Lake George

In a letter to the photographer Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz wrote that he thought of his Poplar photographs as self-portraits. Such hidden subtexts are typical of the work Stieglitz produced during summer retreats to his family farmhouse on Lake George in the Adirondack mountains. Produced at the end of his artistic career, they are some of his most personal and introspective works. Stieglitz began to photograph around Lake George in 1922, after inheriting the property. There he became increasingly experimental, making his famous portraits of Georgia O'Keeffe, whom he married in 1924, and his celebrated series of clouds, called Equivalents. It was also at Lake George that Stieglitz first began to explore the rural landscape. This rich print of dying poplars, dazzling in detail but brooding in tone, reflects the melancholy of a mature artist.