Edward Steichen

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Edward Steichen

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | 2008 | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Edward Steichen , 1879-1973, American photographer, b. Luxembourg, reared in Hancock, Mich. Steichen is credited with the transformation of photography into an art form. At 16, while apprenticed as a lithographer, he taught himself photography and painted in his spare time. Studying art in Paris, he sought painterly effects in his photography, becoming an enormously successful portrait photographer. In New York City he was associated with Alfred Stieglitz in the founding of the "291" and Photo-Secession galleries. At "291" he brought works by Cézanne, Rodin, Picasso, and Matisse to American attention. Back in Paris, Steichen made botanical experiments, a lifelong passion; he was later to win added renown as a crossbreeder of flowers.

During World War I Steichen was instrumental in the development of aerial photography. Fascinated by the technical potential of the medium, he produced pictures remarkable for their clarity, detail, and expressive use of light. From 1923 to 1938 he worked as a portrait and fashion photographer for Condé Nast publications and opened a commercial studio. At this time he made superb photomurals, including those of the George Washington Bridge. During World War II, he was placed in command of naval combat photography.

Steichen was later director of the department of photography of the Museum of Modern Art (1947-62). In this capacity he organized the Family of Man exhibition (1955) to "mirror the essential oneness of mankind" ; it is considered the greatest photographic exposition ever mounted. During his time at the museum, Steichen had virtually abandoned his own work; but in his last years he filmed the effect of the passing seasons on a flowering shadblow tree. Steichen's creative imagination and his extraordinarily powerful imagery forged for him and for his medium an honored place among the fine arts.

Bibliography: See his Life in Photography (1963, repr. 1985); Edward Steichen: The Portraits, with text by C. Peterson (1989); C. Sandburg (his brother-in-law) et al., Steichen the Photographer (1961); J. Steichen (his third wife), Steichen's Legacy: Photographs, 1895-1973 (2000); biography by P. Nivens (1997); J. Smith, Edward Steichen: The Early Years (1999).

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Steichen, Edward Jean

The Oxford Companion to United States History | 2001 | | © The Oxford Companion to United States History 2001, originally published by Oxford University Press 2001. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Steichen, Edward Jean (1879–1973), photographer.Part of the avant‐garde modernist circle around Alfred Stieglitz; a prominent advertising, fashion, and wartime photographer; and director of the Museum of Modern Art's Photography Department (1947–1962), Steichen championed a photography that could move fluidly between elite museum work and popular, even frankly commercial imagery.

Born in Luxembourg, Steichen came to America with his working‐class parents in 1881 and grew up in Michigan and Wisconsin. Apprenticed to a Milwaukee commercial lithographer, he soon turned to photography. His work, exhibited in Philadelphia in 1899, garnered the attention of major national figures in the arts, including Stieglitz. During two years in Paris (1900–1902), he served as Stieglitz's representative and soaked up the dominant trends in painting and photography. Opening a portrait studio in New York City in 1902, he photographed many well‐known figures of the day while working with Stieglitz to promote photography as an art form. In 1917–1918, he headed the photographic office of the U.S. Army Air Service. By the 1920s, while continuing as a portrait photographer, Steichen was also firmly entrenched in the worlds of commercial photography, practically inventing the genre in the United States with his advertising and fashion work in such glossy journals as Vanity Fair and Vogue. Like many others, he was converted in the 1930s to the cause of social documentation and the power of the camera as a persuader of national truths, whether Great Depression Era realities or the World War II naval conflict in the Pacific—dogma that served him well as curator of nationalistic blockbuster photograph exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art during and after the war. His most famous endeavor, The Family of Man (1955), which toured worldwide and became a best‐selling book, brought the layout and rhetorical styles of photojournalism and advertising to the elite museum. As both photographer and curator, Steichen's greatest talent lay in adapting techniques from other media—painting and journalism—to the realms of high‐art photography.
See also Depressions, Economic; Modernist Culture; Museums: Museums of Art.

Bibliography

Eric Sandeen , Picturing an Exhibition: The Family of Man and 1950s America, 1995.
Penelope Niven , Steichen: A Biography, 1997.
Joel Smith , Edward Steichen: The Early Years, 1999.

Peter Bacon Hales

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Free newspaper and magazine articles

Free Article The Family of Stieglitz and Steichen.(Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen's legacy)(Critical Essay)
Magazine article from: Art in America; 9/1/2001
Free Article "Edward Steichen: Portraits".
Business Wire; 4/10/2008
Free Article Real Fantasies: Edward Steichen's Advertising Photography.
Magazine article from: Artforum International; 11/1/1997

Related articles from newspapers, magazines, and more

Edward Steichen, Out of the Shadows
Newspaper article from: The Washington Post; 1/12/1998; ; 700+ words ; STEICHEN A Biography By Penelope Niven Clarkson...photography, horticulture and curating, Edward Steichen has a present-day image as soft and...as the "Maternal Scrapbook" in the Edward Steichen Archive at New York's Museum of Modern...
Edward Steichen, Examined Through An Unflattering Lens
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Magazine article from: Art in America; 9/1/2001; ; 700+ words ; ...he had founded with Edward Steichen nine years earlier...American Art had unveiled "Edward Steichen," a comprehensive...photography as an art form. Edward (or Eduard until he...after World War I) Steichen was Stieglitz's junior...
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Newspaper article from: The Boston Globe; 12/28/1997; ; 700+ words ; ...Temin writes about art and dance for the Globe. Edward Steichen has long been ensconced in the pantheon of photographers...biography of Sandburg that Niven started researching Steichen. Edward Steichen was anything but the solitary artist burying himself...
Living up to the legacy: New book focuses on Edward Steichen's photographic genius.(The Dallas Morning News)
Newspaper article from: Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service; 10/11/2000; ; 700+ words ; ...could lead one to believe that Edward Steichen did everything in modern photography...large exhibition of his work, "Edward Steichen." The Howard Greenberg Gallery...captions reveal a restless spirit. Edward Steichen died in 1973, just short of...
Arts: The anti-Christ of photography? Or `the greatest photographer who ever lived'? Edward Steichen's work provoked extreme reactions during his lifetime and, in the first retrospective since his death in 1973, still does.
Newspaper article from: The Independent - London; 1/6/2001; ; 700+ words ; ...was still in his early twenties, Edward Steichen (1879- 1973) was already being...pantheon himself - snarled that Steichen was unquestionably the "anti-Christ of photography". Steichen's admirers, and they have been...
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Business Wire; 4/10/2008; 700+ words ; ...Sept. 1 WASHINGTON -- "Edward Steichen: Portraits" examines two distinct portrait styles of Edward Steichen (1879-1973): the soft...played with shadow and light. "Edward Steichen paved the way for modern celebrity...
'EDWARD STEICHEN: PORTRAITS' OPENS AT SMITHSONIAN'S NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY APRIL 11
News Wire article from: US Fed News Service, Including US State News; 3/21/2008; 560 words ; ...the following press release: "Edward Steichen: Portraits" examines two distinct portrait styles of Edward Steichen (1879-1973): the soft...played with shadow and light. "Edward Steichen paved the way for modern celebrity...
Real Fantasies: Edward Steichen's Advertising Photography.(Review)
Magazine article from: Business History; 10/1/1998; ; 700+ words ; ...relevance of the American photographer Edward Steichen to Business History is not at first...practical uses of his art, however, Steichen was enthusiastic in accepting a...agency, J. Walter Thompson. Steichen thus found himself positioned between...
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Magazine article from: Artforum International; 11/1/1997; ; 700+ words ; ...read Patricia Johnston's Real Fantasies: Edward Steichen's Advertising Photography. Steichen's talent, business acumen, and social...Johnston makes no hierarchical claims for either Steichen's fine art or commercial work. In this...
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Edward Steichen. Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)

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