Edward Jean Steichen (Luxembourgish:[ˈʃtɑɪ̯ɕən]; March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was aLuxembourgish American photographer, painter and curator and a pioneer offashion photography. His gown images for the magazineArt et Décoration in 1911 were the first modern fashion photographs to be published. From 1923 to 1938, Steichen served as chief photographer for theCondé Nast magazinesVogue andVanity Fair, while also working for many advertising agencies, includingJ. Walter Thompson. During these years, Steichen was regarded as the most popular and highest-paid photographer in the world.[1]
From 1947 to 1961, Steichen served as Director of the Department of Photography at New York'sMuseum of Modern Art. While there, he curated and assembled exhibits including the touring exhibitionThe Family of Man, which was seen by nine million people. In 2003, theFamily of Man photographic collection was added toUNESCO'sMemory of the World Register in recognition of its historical value.[3]
In February 2006, a print of Steichen's earlypictorialist photograph,The Pond–Moonlight (1904), sold for US$2.9 million—at the time, the highest price ever paid for a photograph at auction.[4] A print of another photograph of the same style,The Flatiron (1904), became thesecond most expensive photograph ever on November 8, 2022, when it was sold for $12,000,000, atChristie'sNew York – well above the original estimate of $2,000,000-$3,000,000.[5]
Steichen was bornÉduard Jean Steichen on March 27, 1879, in a small house in the village ofBivange,Luxembourg, the son of Jean-Pierre and Marie Kemp Steichen.[6] His parents facing increasingly straitened circumstances and financial difficulties, decided to make a new start and emigrated to theUnited States when Steichen was eighteen months old. Jean-Pierre Steichen immigrated in 1880, with Marie Steichen bringing the infant Éduard along after Jean-Pierre had settled inHancock inMichigan'sUpper Peninsula copper country. According to noted Steichen biographer,Penelope Niven, the Steichens were "part of a large exodus of Luxembourgers displaced in the late nineteenth century by worsening economic conditions."[6]
Éduard's sister and only sibling,Lilian Steichen, was born in Hancock on May 1, 1883. She would later marry poetCarl Sandburg, whom she met at the MilwaukeeSocial Democratic Party office in 1907. Her marriage to Sandburg the following year helped forge a life-long friendship and partnership between her brother and Sandburg.[7][8]
By 1889, when Éduard was 10, his parents had saved up enough money to move the family toMilwaukee.[9] There he learned German and English at school, while continuing to speakLuxembourgish at home.[10]
In 1894, at fifteen, Steichen began attendingPio Nono College, a Catholic boys'high school, where his artistic talents were noticed. His drawings in particular were said to show promise.[11] He quit high school to begin a four-yearlithography apprenticeship with the American Fine Art Company of Milwaukee.[12] After hours, he would sketch and draw, and he began to teach himself painting.[13] Having discovered a camera shop near his work, he visited frequently until he persuaded himself to buy his first camera, a secondhandKodak box "detective" camera, in 1895.[14] Steichen and his friends who were also interested in drawing and photography pooled their funds, rented a small room in aMilwaukee, WI office building, and began calling themselves the Milwaukee Art Students League.[15] The group hired Richard Lorenz andRobert Schade for occasional lectures.[12] In 1899, Steichen's photographs were exhibited in the second Philadelphia Photographic Salon.[16]
Steichen became a U.S. citizen in 1900 and signed thenaturalization papers asEdward J. Steichen, but he continued to use his birth name of Éduard until after theFirst World War.[17]
In April 1900, Steichen left Milwaukee forParis to study art.Clarence H. White thought Steichen andAlfred Stieglitz should meet, and thus produced an introduction letter for Steichen, and Steichen—thenen route to Paris from his home in Milwaukee—met Stieglitz inNew York City in early 1900.[18] In that first meeting, Stieglitz expressed praise for Steichen's background in painting and bought three of Steichen's photographic prints.[19]
In 1902, when Stieglitz was formulating what would becomeCamera Work, he asked Steichen to design the logo for the magazine with a customtypeface.[20] Steichen was the most frequently shown photographer in the journal.
According to author and art historian William A. Ewing, Steichen became one of the earliest "jet setters", constantly moving back and forth between Europe and the U.S. by steamship, in the process cross-pollinating art from Europe to the United States, helping to define photography as an art form, and at the same time widening America's understanding of European art and art in general.[23]
Fashion photography began withengravings reproduced from photographs of modishly-dressed actresses byLeopold-Emile Reutlinger,Nadar and others in the 1890s. After high-qualityhalf-tone reproduction of photographs became possible, most credit as pioneers of thegenre goes to the French BaronAdolph de Meyer and to Steichen who, borrowing his friend's hand-camera in 1907, candidly photographed dazzlingly-dressed ladies at theLongchamp Racecourse[24][25] Fashion then was being photographed for newspaper supplements and fashion magazines, particularly by theFrères Séeberger,[25] as it was worn at Paris horse-race meetings by aristocracy and hired models.
Steichen himself, in his 1963 autobiography, asserted that his 1911Art et Décoration photographs "were probably the first serious fashion photographs ever made,"[31] a generalised claim since repeated by many commentators. What he (and de Meyer)[30] did bring was an artistic approach; a soft-focus, aesthetically retouchedPictorialist style that was distinct from the mechanically sharp images made by his commercial colleagues for half-tone reproduction, and that he and the publishers and fashion designers for whom he worked appreciated as a marketable idealisation of the garment, beyond the exact description of fabrics and buttonholes.[30]
AfterWorld War I, during which he commanded the photographic division of theAmerican Expeditionary Forces, he gradually reverted tostraight photography. In the early 1920s, Steichen famously took over 1000 photographs of a single cup and saucer, on "a graduated scale of tones from pure white through light and dark greys to black velvet," which he compared to a musician's finger exercises.[32] He was hired byCondé Nast in 1923 for the extraordinary salary of $35,000 (equivalent to over $500,000 in 2019 value).[30]
At the commencement of World War II, Steichen, then in his sixties, had retired[33] as a full-time photographer. He was developing new varieties ofdelphinium, which in 1936 had been the subject of his first exhibition at theMuseum of Modern Art, and the only flower exhibition ever held there.[34]
In 1942, Steichen curated for the Museum of Modern Art the exhibitionRoad to Victory, five duplicates of which toured the world. Photographs in the exhibition were credited to enlisted members of the Navy, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps and numbers by Steichen's unit, while many were anonymous and some were made by automatic cameras in Navy planes operated while firing at the enemy.[40] This was followed in January 1945 byPower in the Pacific: Battle Photographs of our Navy in Action on the Sea and In the Sky.[41] Steichen was released from Active Duty (under honorable conditions) on December 13, 1945, at the rank ofCaptain. For his service duringWorld War II, he was awarded theWorld War II Victory Medal,Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (with 2 campaign stars),American Campaign Medal, and numerous other awards.
In the summer of 1929, Museum of Modern Art directorAlfred H. Barr, Jr. had included a department devoted to photography in a plan presented to the Trustees. Though not put in place until 1940, it became the first department of photography in a museum devoted to twentieth-century art and was headed byBeaumont Newhall. On the strength of attendances of hispropaganda exhibitionsRoad to Victory[42] andPower in the Pacific, and precipitating curator Newhall's resignation along with most of his staff, in 1947, Steichen was appointed Director of Photography until 1962, later assisted byGrace M. Mayer.
His appointment was protested by many who saw him as anti-art photography, one of the most vocal beingAnsel Adams who on April 29, 1946, wrote a letter to Stephen Clark (copied to Newhall) to express his disappointment over Steichen's hiring for the new position of director; "To supplant Beaumont Newhall, who has made such a great contribution to the art through his vast knowledge and sympathy for the medium, with a regime which is inevitably favorable to the spectacular and 'popular' is indeed a body blow to the progress of creative photography."[43]
Nevertheless, Ansel Adams' imageMoonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico was first published inU.S. Camera Annual 1943, after being selected by Steichen, who was serving as judge for the publication.[44] This gaveMoonrise an audience before its first formal exhibition at theMuseum of Modern Art in 1944.[45]
Steichen as director held a strong belief in the local product, of the "liveness of the melting pot of American photography," and worked to expand and organise the collection, inspiring and recognising the 1950s generation while keeping historical shows to a minimum. He worked withRobert Frank even before hisThe Americans was published, exhibited the early work ofHarry Callahan andAaron Siskind, and purchased two prints byRobert Rauschenberg in 1952, ahead of any museum.[46] Steichen also kept international developments in his scope and held shows and made important acquisitions from Europe and Latin America, occasionally visiting those countries to do so. Three books were published by the Department during his tenure (The Family of Man,Steichen the Photographer, andThe Bitter Years: 1935–1941: Rural America as Seen by the Photographers of theFarm Security Administration).[47][46] Despite his solid career in photography, Steichen displayed his own work at MoMA—his retrospective,Steichen the Photographer—only after he had already announced his retirement in 1961.
Among accomplishments that were to redeem initial resentment at his appointment, Steichen createdThe Family of Man, a world-touring Museum of Modern Art exhibition that, while arguably a product of AmericanCold War propaganda, was seen by 9 million visitors and still holds the record for most-visited photography exhibit. Now permanently housed and on continuous display inClervaux (Luxembourgish: Klierf) Castle in northernLuxembourg, his country of birth, Steichen regarded the exhibition as the "culmination of his career.".[48] Comprising over 500 photos that depicted life, love and death in 68 countries, the prologue for its widely purchased catalogue was written by Steichen's brother-in-law,Carl Sandburg.[49] As had been Steichen's wish, the exhibition was donated to theGrand Duchy of Luxembourg, his country of birth.
The following are exhibitions curated or directed by Steichen during his tenure as Director of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art. (References link to the exhibition page in the museum's archive, with press releases, checklists of the exhibited photographs, and installation views.)
1948, 6 Apr–11 Jul:In and Out of Focus: A Survey of Today's Photography, "including prints by 76 [American] photographers, the first large exhibition organized by Captain Edward J. Steichen, Director of the Museum's Department of Photography."[51]
1948, 27 Jul–26 Sep:50 Photographs by 50 Photographers – Landmarks in Photographic History. "50 prints from the Museum Collections that form an abbreviated history of the development of pictorial photography during the past 100 years."[52]
1952, 20 May–1 Sep:Diogenes with a Camera. First show of a series featuring contemporary American photographers:W. Eugene Smith, Sommer, Callahan, Weston,Esther Bubley,Eliot Porter.[72]
1960, 1–16 Oct:Photographs for Collectors. Sales show with "more than 250 prints by 66 photographers...priced at $25 and up."[83]
1962, 30 Jan–1 Apr:Harry Callahan and Robert Frank, assisted by Grace M. Mayer. Over 200 prints, and screenings of Frank's filmsPull My Daisy (1959) andThe Sin of Jesus (1961).[84]
1962, 18 Oct–25 Nov:The Bitter Years: 1935–1941. 200 photographs selected by "Director Emeritus" Steichen (from 270,000 taken for the F.S.A.)[85]
In the latter years of his tenure after her appointment by Steichen as Assistant Curator, it wasGrace M. Mayer from theMuseum of the City of New York, where she had organized about 150 exhibitions,[86] who curated the showsThe Sense of Abstraction (17 Feb–10 Apr 1960), co-directed by Kathleen Haven, the museum staff designer since 1955.[87] Then Mayer organized Steichens only solo-show during his time at the museum,Steichen the Photographer, (28 Mar–30 May 1961),Diogenes with a Camera V (26 Sep–12 Nov 1961),50 Photographs by 50 Photographers, a third survey of the museum's collection (3 Apr–15 May 1962),[88] and a series of four installations calledA Bid for Space (1960 to 1963), which were designed by Kathleen Haven. Haven had also been responsible for the design ofThe Family of Man, she worked two years on, as well asDiogenes with a Camera (II, III and IV), the exhibition of Brassaï's graffiti photographs, and the 1958 collection survey.[89]
Steichen hiredJohn Szarkowski to be his successor at the Museum of Modern Art on July 1, 1962. On his appointment, Szarkowski promoted Mayer to Curator.
Though then 88 years old and unable to attend in person, in 1967 Steichen, as a still-active member of the copyright committee of theAmerican Society of Magazine Photographers, wrote a submission to the U.S. Senate hearings to support copyright law revisions, requesting that "this young giant among the visual arts be given equal rights by having its peculiar problems taken into account."[91]
In 1968, the Edward Steichen Archive was established in MoMA's Department of Photography. The Museum's then-DirectorRené d'Harnoncourt declared that its function was to "amplify and clarify the meaning of Steichen's contribution to the art of photography, and to modern art generally."[24] Creator of the Archive was Grace M. Mayer, who in 1959 started her career as an assistant to the director, Steichen, and who became Curator of Photography in 1962, retiring in 1968. Mayer returned after her retirement to serve in a voluntary capacity as Curator of the Edward Steichen Archive until the mid-1980s to source materials by, about, and related to Steichen. Her detailed card catalogs are housed in the Museum's Grace M. Mayer Papers.[92]
Steichen's 90th birthday was marked with a dinner gathering of photographers, editors, writers, and museum professionals at thePlaza Hotel in 1969. The event was hosted by MoMA trustee Henry Allen Moe, andU.S. Camera magazine publisher Tom Maloney.[24]
In 1970, an evening show was presented in Arles during TheRencontres d'Arles festival:Edward Steichen, photographe by Martin Boschet.
Steichen bought a farm that he called Umpawaug in 1928, just outside WestRedding, Connecticut.[93] He lived there until his death on March 25, 1973, two days before his 94th birthday.[94] After his death, Steichen's farm was made into a park, known asTopstone Park.[95] As of 2018, Topstone Park was open seasonally.[96]
"I consider Steichen a very great artist and the leading, the greatest photographer of the time. Before him, nothing conclusive had been achieved."[97]
Steichen's career, especially his activities at MoMA, did much to popularise and promote the medium, and both before and since his death photography, including his own, continued to appreciate as a collectible art form.[46]
Steichen took the photograph inMamaroneck, New York, near the home of his friend, art criticCharles Caffin. It shows a wooded area and pond, with moonlight appearing between the trees and reflecting on the pond. While the print appears to be a color photograph, the first true color photographic process, theautochrome process, was not available until 1907. Steichen created the impression of color by manually applying layers oflight-sensitive gums to the paper. Only three prints ofThe Pond–Moonlight are still known to exist and, as a result of the hand-layering of the gums, each is unique. (The two prints not auctioned are held in museum collections.) The extraordinary sale price of the print is in part attributable to its one-of-a-kind character and to its rarity.[98]
A show of early color photographs by Steichen was held at theMudam (Musée d'Art moderne) in Luxembourg City from July 14 to September 3, 2007.[99]
Steichen married Clara E. Smith (1875–1952) in 1903. They had two daughters,Mary Rose Steichen (1904-1998) and Charlotte "Kate" Rodina Steichen (1908-1988). In 1914, Clara accused her husband of having an affair with artistMarion H. Beckett, who was staying with them in France. The Steichens left France just ahead of invading German troops. In 1915, Clara Steichen returned to France with her daughter Kate, staying in their house in the Marne in spite of the war. Steichen returned to France with the Photography Division of the American Army Signal Corps in 1917, whereupon Clara returned to the United States. In 1919, Clara Steichen sued Marion Beckett for having an affair with her husband, but was unable to prove her claims.[100][101] Clara and Edward Steichen eventually divorced in 1922.
Steichen married Dana Desboro Glover in 1923. She died ofleukemia in 1957.
In 1960, aged 80, Steichen married 27-year-oldJoanna Taub and remained married to her until his death, two days before his 94th birthday. Joanna Steichen died on July 24, 2010, inMontauk, New York, aged 77.[102]
2007–2008:Edward Steichen: Lives in Photography / Une épopée photographique, curated by William A. Ewing and Todd Brandow for the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography, Minneapolis, and Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, in collaboration with Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía,[110] catalogue[111]
2008–2015:Edward Steichen: In High Fashion (The Condé Nast Years) 1923–1937, curated by William A. Ewing, Todd Brandow and Nathalie Herschdorfer, catalogue
2009, 20 Mar–16 May:Edward Steichen: 1915–1923, Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York
2010, 6 Nov–16 Jan 2011:Edward Steichen: Celebrity Design,Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, first comprehensive show of 65 photographs gifted to the museum in 1983 by Joanna Steichen[116]
2011, 15 Sep–29 Oct:Edward Steichen: The Last Printing, Danziger Gallery, New York
^Roberts, Pam (1997). "Alfred Stieglitz, 291 Gallery and Camera Work," in: Alfred Stieglitz (ed.),Camera Work, The Complete Illustrations 1903–1917. Köln: Taschen.ISBN3-8228-8072-8, p. 17.
^Mosar, Christian (2007),Bloom! Experiments in Color Photography by Edward Steichen. A Selection from George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Luxembourg:MUDAM,ISBN978-2-919873-02-9.
^Samels, Zoë (29 September 2016)."Edward Steichen".National Gallery of Art. Retrieved28 August 2022.
^abAubenas, Sylvie; Henri, Jules, and Louis Séeberger; Xavier Demange; Virginie Chardin (2006),Les Séeberger, photographes de l'élégance, 1909-1939 (exhibition catalogue, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Galerie de photographie), Bibliothèque nationale de France / Seuil,ISBN2020878356{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link).
^An exhibition in Orlando in 2019/20 focused on Steichen's dedication to flowers. Examples especially of his rarely seen paintings are displayed in a review ofEdward Steichen: In Exaltation of Flowers by Suzanne Cohen onArt Districts Magazine, n. d. [Sept 2019], and on themuseum's website. Accessed 30 August 2024.
^Sandeen, Eric J (1995),Picturing an exhibition: the family of man and 1950s America (1st ed.), University of New Mexico Press,ISBN978-0-8263-1558-8
^Steichen, Edward; Phillips, Christopher (1981),Steichen at war, H.N. Abrams,ISBN978-0-8109-1639-5
^United States. (1967). Copyright law revision: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninetieth Congress, first session pursuant to S. Res. 37 on S. 597., U.S. Government Printing Office.
^abcdefghijklmnopqrstuAuer, Michèle; Auer, Michel (1985),Encyclopédie internationale des photographes de 1839 à nos jours = Photographers Encyclopaedia International 1839 to the Present, Editions Camera obscura,ISBN978-2-903671-06-8.
^Brandow, Todd; Ewing, William A. (2007),Edward Steichen: Lives in Photography (exhibition catalogue), Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography/Musée de l'Elysée/W.W. Norton
Steichen, Edward (1947),The Blue Ghost: A Photographic Log and Personal Narrative of the Aircraft Carrier U.S.S. Lexington in Combat Operation. Harcourt Brace, & Co.
Johnston, Patricia A. (1997),Real Fantasies: Edward Steichen's Advertising Photography, University of California Press,ISBN978-0-520-22707-1.
Mulligan, Therese (1997),Hollywood Celebrity: Edward Steichen's Vanity Fair Photographs (exhibition catalogue). Rochester, NY: George Eastman House.
Niven, Penelope (1997),Steichen: A Biography. New York: Clarkson Potter.ISBN0-517-59373-4.
Smith, Joel (1999),Edward Steichen: The Early Years. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Steichen, Joanna (2000),Steichen's Legacy: Photographs, 1895–1973, Alfred A. Knopf,ISBN978-0-679-45076-4.
Haskell, Barbara (2000),Edward Steichen (exhibition catalogue). New York: Whitney Museum of American Art.
Bjerke, Øivind Storm (2002),Edward Steichen: Art as Advertising, Advertising as Art. Works from the Collection of Norsk museum for fotografi - Preus fotomuseum (exhibition catalogue), Norsk museum for fotografi - Preus fotomuseum.
Brandow, Todd; Ewing, William A. (2007),Edward Steichen: Lives in Photography (exhibition catalogue), Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography/Musée de l'Elysée/W.W. Norton
Mitchell, Emily (2007),The Last Summer of the World. Norton. (A fictional narrative about Steichen.)
Hurm, Gerd; Anke Reitz; Shamoon Zamir, eds. (2017),The Family of Man Revisited: Photography in a Global Age. London and Milton Park: I.B. Tauris and Routledge. ISBN 978-178453967-2.
Martineau, Paul, ed. (2018),Icons of Style: A Century of Fashion Photography, The J. Paul Getty Museum,ISBN978-1-60606-558-7.
Polfer, Michel (2023),Edward Steichen (the 178 prints of the bequest to the National Museum of Luxembourg), Milan: Silvana,ISBN978-8836651559.
Edward Steichen at theGeorge Eastman Museum, Rochester (over 2000 photographs; regular works, private snapshots, test takes and contact sheets are undifferentiated and often not dated yet)
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