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Towards the end of the century there was a growing dissatisfaction with the photographic establishment in England and in America. At the turn of the century Stieglitz was the most important photographer in America. In England this led to a mass of resignations from the Photographic Society, and the formation of a group known as the Linked Ring, whilst in America, in 1902, an avant-garde group of photographers led by Stieglitz, also sought to break away from the orthodox approach to photography, and from what they considered was the stale work of fellow photographers. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Stieglitz had already engaged in his long fight to have photography recognized as a valid medium of artistic expression

The American group came to be known as the Photo-Secession, the name Secession coming from groups of artists in Austria and Germany who had broken away from the academic establishment. Composed of carefully selected pictorial photographers, the society often did the best and most original photography produced in the United States and abroad. Their rejection of establishment photography was aptly summarised in "Photograms of the year" for 1900: "That wealth of trivial detail which was admired in photography's early days and which is still loved by the great general public.... has gone out of fashion with advanced workers on both sides of the Atlantic."

The Photo-Secession Gallery, better known as "291" (at 291 Fifth Avenue in New York), was devoted to these photographers and their aesthetic. The gallery was not limited to photographers, but also to painters who were finding new modes of expression, such as Picasso, Matisse, Maurer, and Freuh. Many critics held the opinion that 291 was the only focal point of "Modern Art" in America until the Armory show in 1913. It was in these gallery rooms that the ice was broken for modern art in America.

Composition, massing of...