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Edward Steichen, American, Born Luxembourg, 1879-1973
Steichen and his family emigrated to the United States from
Luxembourg in 1881 because his mother believed that he would have a better life
in Midwestern America. They lived for a time in Michigan and then moved in 1889
to Milwaukee. Between the years of 1894-1898 Steichen apprenticed as a designer
for a lithographic company in Milwaukee, studied painting, and helped to organize
an Art Students League. At this time he decided to become a painter, but in 1896
his father gave him his first camera and he was hooked immediately. He studied
with a local photographer and by 1899 he entered his first exhibition at the
Second Salon of Philadelphia. He went to New York in 1902 and met with Stieglitz
who bought some of his work and the two men quickly became friends. Along with
Stieglitz, he was principal in the pictorial movement. Steichen was one of the
founders of the Photo-Secession. He helped to organize the Little Galleries of
the Photo-Secession (291), and he was instrumental in designing the cover
and typography for the Photo-Secessionists' quarterly, Camera Work.
Between 1906-1914 he lived in Paris where he continued to study painting and
photography, and he helped make connections between Stieglitz and such artist's
as Rodin. In 1914, during WWI, he commanded the Photographic Division of Aerial
Photography in the American Expeditionary Forces. He retired in 1918 as a lieutenant
colonel and decided to burn all of his paintings and concentrate on photography
full time. His experience during the war shifted his creative drive away from
impressionistic style photographs to creating sharp, clear close-up images of
still lives. He also continued to take portraits and was written up in Vanity
Fair as "the world's best portrait photographer". This led him to the position
of chief photographer for Conde Nast publications which allowed him to travel
to Europe to photograph fashion, famous writers, artists, and politicians. Between
1923 and 1938 Steichen's celebrity portraits and fashion photographs were published
in Vanity Fair and Vogue and he was widely recognized as one
of the best in his field.
In 1938 he had saved up enough money to close down his studio and move to France where he planned on spending his time as a horticulturist. In 1942 he was once again called into duty and served as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy where he was in charge of photographing the naval aspects of the war. Between 1947-1962 he was the director of the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1952 he began to organize an exhibition which would be a compilation of the best photographers in the world. He went to 29 cities in 11 European countries and the endeavor took 3 years, but the exhibition entitled, The Family of Man, was well worth it. The exhibition was seen by more than nine million people in 69 countries and millions of books from the exhibition were sold. Over the span of his 77 year photographic career, this was probably his consummate achievement.
Bibliography:
Therese Mulligan, Hollywood Celebrity: Edward Steichen s Vanity Fair Portraits, Rochester, NY: George Eastman House, 1997 .
Joel Smith, Edward Steichen: The Early Years, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Edward Steichen: The Royal Photographic Society Collection, Milan: Edizioni Charta, 1997.
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