Alfred Stieglitz opened the gallery known as 291 in 1905 to champion modern art.
The gallery was formally called the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, but it became widely known as “291” after its address at 291 Fifth Avenue in New York City. Stieglitz used the space to exhibit photography alongside European and American modernist art.
The program introduced New York audiences to artists including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Constantin Brâncuși, and Paul Cézanne. It also became important in Georgia O’Keeffe’s career: in 1916, Stieglitz exhibited her abstract charcoal drawings there after receiving them from her friend and former teacher Anita Pollitzer.
The number is easy to confuse with Stieglitz’s later galleries. After 291 closed in 1917, he operated the Intimate Gallery and then An American Place. Those venues were significant, but 291 is the name associated with the address that made his early modern-art program famous.