Thaw — Anne W. Brigman, 1906

Anne W. Brigman made Thaw in 1906, the year she became the only photographer working west of the Mississippi to be elected to Fellowship in the Photo-Secession. She spent her summers carrying a view camera into the high Sierra Nevada and built a body of work there that set the human figure into rock, water and weathered pine rather than against them. Alfred Stieglitz kept this print, and it came to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with his collection in 1933.

Brigman printed in the Pictorialist manner, which means detail gives way to tone. Edges stay soft, the range between light and dark stays deliberately narrow, and the result reads as weather rather than record. That is what makes work from this school sit well in a quiet room: it holds a wall without demanding the whole of it, and it changes character as the daylight moves.

Each piece is printed to order and stretched over a 1.25 inch solid wood frame, with the image continuing around the edges. It arrives ready to hang, no framing required, in three vertical sizes. The source file is an open-access reproduction of a photograph now in the public domain, and the original print remains in the Museum's collection.

• Medium: matte canvas, stretched over a 1.25 inch solid wood frame
• Orientation: vertical
• Sizes: 12×18in, 16×24in, 24×36in
• Finish: monochrome reproduction, matte surface
• Hanging: arrives ready to hang, no frame required
• Artwork: Anne W. Brigman, Thaw, 1906, gelatin silver print
• Original held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection
• Printed to order, shipped from the nearest production partner