Mar 02, 2023 - Sale 2628

Sale 2628 - Lot 172

Price Realized: $ 1,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
"YOU SAY YOU HAD CEASED TO EXIST. I FREQUENTLY FEEL THAT" STIEGLITZ, ALFRED. Autograph Letter Signed, "Stieglitz," to the wife of Horace Rand Lamb ("Dear B[eatrice] L[amb]," with a 1 1/2-page postscript additionally signed "S," thanking for sending letters, commenting on her desire to make photographs, mentioning how influential was Agnes E. Meyer, sending Christmas greetings and, in the postscript, remarking on the depth of Mrs. Lamb's feelings and how they are sometimes similar to his own. 3 1/2 pages, 4to, written on two sheets; horizontal folds. With the original envelope. "The Place" [New York], 25 December 1937
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". . . All the letters mean much to me. The one in which you say: 'I always thought I wanted to write or photograph--find some way of saying what is in me. But now I don't know. Right after seeing you, it feels as though I have no need to do any such thing . . . . [I]t feels as though knowing you, you were as much as one lifetime could hold.' How well I understand, sense, your feeling. I'm sure that that sorry feeling will generate in you a greater need than ever to write & photograph--to create the equivalent in form [to] that which is the essence called You. . . . I will tell you about Agnes Meyer. I can realize what an influence she must have been in your young life. For 6 or 7 years she & I were very close friends. . . ."
The postscript: "You wrote: 'You stood by the doorway & talked to me. I heard every word you said, but I didn't hear any words. For suddenly I saw the thing behind your words. I saw the essence of you, the highly personal . . . you. I was completely destroyed. . . . I was not there. I was not anywhere. I had ceased to exist.'
"You will write . . . for anyone feeling as deeply as you do must finally collapse or write. . . .
"You say you had ceased to exist. I frequently feel that in reality--I don't actually exist. . . ."