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Heinrich Kühn Austria-Germany, 1866-1944
On the Hillside, A Study in Values, 1910Vintage Gum Bichromate Print10 x 12 inchesHeinrich Kühn (Austrian, 1866-1944) was a central figure of international art photography at the turn of the 20th Century. His goal, along with Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen, was to establish the photograph as a medium for rendering an artistic vision as precisely and creatively as in painting and drawing. Early photographic processes allowed him to deliberately alter the tones and contrast to fit his notion of the image and dissolve its sharpness, as too much sharpness was considered “non-artistic” because it veered away from painting. Kühn reduced the romantic cosmos of “Pictorialism” to the point where his compositions became almost abstract and exhibited a sense of timelessness.
