Of Bricks & Light: Details and Glimpses

The mount of this photograph bears the stamp of the Albright Art Gallery. In the year “Colonial Columns” was made, the Albright sponsored a major show: the International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography. Originally, the exhibition was intended to present works arranged by Porterfield’s group, the Photo-Pictorialists of Buffalo, and by Alfred Stieglitz’s Photo-Secession. Politics interfered, and Stieglitz demanded (and obtained) complete control of the exhibition. As a gesture, he offered the Photo-Pictorialists a room of their own at the show; the members of the group rejected the offer and all but one boycotted the landmark exhibition.

Porterfield was a leading art photographer for many years; his works were published in the Annual of the Pictorialist Photographers of America in 1920 and 1922.