Art: The Glorious Affair

In a full-page article in the old New York American, the noted photographer Alfred Stieglitz heralded the coming exhibition in phrases so extravagant that it hardly seemed possible that the show would live up to his claims. "This glorious affair," he wrote, "is coming off at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York. Don't miss it. If you still belong to the respectable old first primer class in art, you will see there stranger things than you ever dreamed were on land or sea—and you'll hear a battle cry of freedom without any soft...