Edward Jean Steichen
b. 1879 Luxembourg, d. 1973 West Redding, Connecticut
photographer
American

From the portfolio: Twenty-five Photographs, 1982

Printed from the original Steichen negatives by George Tice. No further prints will be made. Edition of 100 plus 30 artist's proofs and 2 BATs.

Print is dry mounted on 20 x 16 inches museum board.

"The camera is a witness of objects, places, and events.... The technical process simply serves as a vehicle of transcription and not as the art."
--Edward Steichen

Edward Steichen became interested in photography at age sixteen. Influenced by the atmosphere of moonlight that came to characterize his early Pictorialist photographs, he also painted. Upon turning twenty-one, he left for Europe by way of New York, meeting Alfred Stieglitz, who purchased three of his photographs. On returning, Steichen set up a studio specializing in portraiture at 291 Fifth Avenue, a space that later became part of "291," Stieglitz's celebrated Photo-Secessionist gallery. Steichen became a founding member of the Photo-Secession group in 1903. In 1923 Steichen went to work for the Condé Nast publications Vanity Fair and Vogue , where he photographed celebrities and fashion. From this he received advertising commissions; he once also made photographic designs for silk fabric. Steichen closed his New York studio in 1938 and embarked upon a new, more spontaneous photographic phase. During World War II he joined the Navy to head up a unit of photographers. Steichen was the first curator of photographs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he curated the famous "Family of Man" exhibition in 1953. [getty.edu]