Excellent anecdote

"In Painting Gender, Constructing Theory: The Alfred Stieglitz Circle and American Formalist Aesthetics, Marcia Brennan recounts a telling anecdote about Alfred Stieglitz and a woman who, sometime in the early 1930s, visited his New York gallery, An American Place. Apparently confused by John Marin's abstractions, the visitor asked the famous photographer and dealer why such evocative compositions failed to arouse her emotions. Stieglitz replied, "Why don't you give me an erection?"

Found this here