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Steichen's Legacy
A magnificent book--315 photographs by Edward Steichen, the man Auguste Rodin called "the greatest photographer of his time."
This is the first gathering in thirty years of Steichen's photographs, spanning seven decades: the landscapes, the haunting studies of flowers, the portraits of friends and family, the still lifes and cityscapes. Here are fashion photographs taken during the fifteen years Steichen worked for Vogue. And here too are the breathtaking portraits he made for Vanity Fair: Colette, Noel Coward, Greta Garbo, Willa Cather, Isadora Duncan . . . William Butler Yeats, Henri Matisse, Thomas Mann . . . George Gershwin, Amelia Earhart, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (taken when he was governor of New York--a standard pose, the decisive leader in his chair--but later, when FDR was president, cropped by Steichen to show the sad, serious face of a visionary acquainted with suffering).
In a personal and illuminating text, Joanna Steichen writes about her husband's passionate views on photography; about how he moved away from painting (his understanding and support of modernism helped bring the movement to this country); about his experiments with abstraction; about the repercussions of commercial success in his life as an artist; about how he and Joanna first met (through the mischievous intervention of Steichen's brother-in-law, Carl Sandburg) and how their relationship changed as they became lovers, man and wife and, finally, artist and assistant.
Joanna Steichen writes about Steichen's days as a colonel in World War I, in charge of aerial photography for the Air Force in France, and then as a captain in the Navy--past the age of retirement--in World War II, in charge of combat photography in the Pacific. She writes about his years as the European art scout for his friend Alfred Stieglitz, and of how Steichen later designed the gallery for the Photo-Secession's 291 and arranged exhibitions of the work of Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso and Brancusi, long before these names were known in America. And she writes about the couple's farm in Connecticut, which Steichen landscaped out of woods and rocks and hollows and photographed over the years, as well as the new hybrid of delphinium Steichen produced and the sunflowers he raised and studied through his lens.
Carl Sandburg said: "A scientist and a speculative philosopher stands back of Steichen's best pictures. They will not yield their meaning and essence on the first look nor the thousandth--which is the test of masterpieces."
Steichen's Legacy is a book of masterpieces.
This is the first gathering in thirty years of Steichen's photographs, spanning seven decades: the landscapes, the haunting studies of flowers, the portraits of friends and family, the still lifes and cityscapes. Here are fashion photographs taken during the fifteen years Steichen worked for Vogue. And here too are the breathtaking portraits he made for Vanity Fair: Colette, Noel Coward, Greta Garbo, Willa Cather, Isadora Duncan . . . William Butler Yeats, Henri Matisse, Thomas Mann . . . George Gershwin, Amelia Earhart, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (taken when he was governor of New York--a standard pose, the decisive leader in his chair--but later, when FDR was president, cropped by Steichen to show the sad, serious face of a visionary acquainted with suffering).
In a personal and illuminating text, Joanna Steichen writes about her husband's passionate views on photography; about how he moved away from painting (his understanding and support of modernism helped bring the movement to this country); about his experiments with abstraction; about the repercussions of commercial success in his life as an artist; about how he and Joanna first met (through the mischievous intervention of Steichen's brother-in-law, Carl Sandburg) and how their relationship changed as they became lovers, man and wife and, finally, artist and assistant.
Joanna Steichen writes about Steichen's days as a colonel in World War I, in charge of aerial photography for the Air Force in France, and then as a captain in the Navy--past the age of retirement--in World War II, in charge of combat photography in the Pacific. She writes about his years as the European art scout for his friend Alfred Stieglitz, and of how Steichen later designed the gallery for the Photo-Secession's 291 and arranged exhibitions of the work of Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso and Brancusi, long before these names were known in America. And she writes about the couple's farm in Connecticut, which Steichen landscaped out of woods and rocks and hollows and photographed over the years, as well as the new hybrid of delphinium Steichen produced and the sunflowers he raised and studied through his lens.
Carl Sandburg said: "A scientist and a speculative philosopher stands back of Steichen's best pictures. They will not yield their meaning and essence on the first look nor the thousandth--which is the test of masterpieces."
Steichen's Legacy is a book of masterpieces.
- GenresPhotographyHistory
408 pages, Hardcover
First published September 26, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 2, 2019
So completely has Edward Steichen's reputation been been consigned to oblivion that it's difficult to believe that in the first half of the twentieth century he was the most famous and highly paid photographer in the world, an international celebrity who regularly consorted with the rich and famous whose portraits he took for the pages of Vanity Fair. The show he organized in 1955 while curator of the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art, The Family of Man, was the most successful photography exhibit in history. It toured thirty-seven countries on six continents and was viewed by more than nine million people; more than sixty years later, its catalog is still in print.
Unlike his slightly younger contemporary Ansel Adams, who basically took the same photos of Yosemite over and over again, Steichen was constantly reinventing himself and moving in new directions in his art. In his early period as a pictorialist, he mastered what are today referred to as alternative printing processes. He was able to achieve unparalleled sharpness in his gum bichromate works by first printing the photograph on platinum and then applying the gum emulsion to its surface before exposing the registered negative for a second time. Steichen was also able to achieve an early form of color photography by introducing various color pigments into the gum emulsion. One of these colored gum prints, The Pond - Moonlight (1904) set a record for the highest price ever paid for a photograph when it was sold at auction in 2006 for $2.9 million.
It was during this period that he began his association with Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession. Steichen then moved to France where he was befriended by a number of artists, most notably the sculptor Auguste Rodin. Years before the 1913 Armory Show, Steichen was shipping back to Stieglitz examples of the most progressive modern art for exhibition at the latter's 291 Gallery. It was through Steichen and Stieglitz that Americans had their first opportunity to view the works of Cézanne, Picasso and Matisse. In addition to photography, Steichen was at that time also pursuing a career as a painter.
In 1923, Steichen gave up painting and returned to New York City where he became chief photographer for the Condé Nast magazines Vanity Fair and Vogue while also accepting commercial assignments from the J. Walter Thompson agency. Steichen had already established himself as a great portraitist in the early of years of the century when, given only two minutes to complete his assignment, he had captured a perfect likeness of J.P. Morgan. The portraits he now took for Condé Nast of celebrities and statesmen are among the greatest ever created for the depth of character the photographer revealed in his subjects. While still in France, in an era when the halftone process first allowed magazines to illustrate their pages with photographs, Steichen had taken some of the earliest fashion photographs, of gowns by Poiret, for Art et Décoration. At Vogue, he took over from Adolph de Meyer and thoroughly modernized the magazine's approach to fashion, creating for it the image it still holds today as the arbiter of fashion.
In his personal life, Steichen was an inveterate womanizer. He was married three times. The first, to an incredibly neurotic woman named Clara Smith, ended in divorce. The second, and by far the happiest, ended when his beloved wife Dana succumbed to leukemia in 1957. After that, Steichen suffered from a belated mid-life crisis. Helen Gee, who many years after Stieglitz's 291 had closed, opened in Greenwich Village one of the country's first commercial photography galleries, recalls in Limelight: A Memoir being chased by Steichen through his apartment while he was recovering from a broken leg and on crutches. Finally, Steichen then age 81, married Joanna Taub, more than fifty years his junior. It was she who edited and wrote the text for the present volume.
Steichen's Legacy, published in 2000 by Knopf, is as handsome a tribute to this great photographer as one could wish for. It begins with an essay by Steichen's widow describing their necessarily short time together (Steichen died at age 94). Though well written and respectful of Steichen's accomplishments, the writer uses the opportunity to lash out at her deceased husband for his authoritarianism and need to exert complete control. She also takes shots at those, such as Steichen's daughters Mary and Kate, who showed her unkindness during the course of her marriage. The essay may have some value for the light it shines on the Steichen's private life, but this would have been a much better book if one or two scholarly essays had been inserted in its place. Following the essay are over 300 photographs, most of them among Steichen's finest, divided into nineteen very arbitrary categories, each of them headed with a quote from Steichen, none of them particularly profound.. The reproductions, each of which takes up a full page, are of the finest quality and convey an excellent sense of the original prints.
In 1984, I took a course at Parsons in Making the Fine Print that was taught by George Tice who had been Steichen's last exhibition printer. He one day brought into class a limited edition portfolio of Steichen's photographs that he had recently printed under the direction of Joanna Steichen. All the most iconic images were there and some with which I had not previously been familiar. It was seeing the actual prints that brought home to me the extent of Steichen's genius. These were simply the finest photographs I'd ever seen. Except perhaps for Stieglitz, Steichen had no equal. It's unfair that he should be so little remembered today. One can only hope that better judgment will prevail and that he will once again enjoy the recognition he deserves.
Unlike his slightly younger contemporary Ansel Adams, who basically took the same photos of Yosemite over and over again, Steichen was constantly reinventing himself and moving in new directions in his art. In his early period as a pictorialist, he mastered what are today referred to as alternative printing processes. He was able to achieve unparalleled sharpness in his gum bichromate works by first printing the photograph on platinum and then applying the gum emulsion to its surface before exposing the registered negative for a second time. Steichen was also able to achieve an early form of color photography by introducing various color pigments into the gum emulsion. One of these colored gum prints, The Pond - Moonlight (1904) set a record for the highest price ever paid for a photograph when it was sold at auction in 2006 for $2.9 million.
It was during this period that he began his association with Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession. Steichen then moved to France where he was befriended by a number of artists, most notably the sculptor Auguste Rodin. Years before the 1913 Armory Show, Steichen was shipping back to Stieglitz examples of the most progressive modern art for exhibition at the latter's 291 Gallery. It was through Steichen and Stieglitz that Americans had their first opportunity to view the works of Cézanne, Picasso and Matisse. In addition to photography, Steichen was at that time also pursuing a career as a painter.
In 1923, Steichen gave up painting and returned to New York City where he became chief photographer for the Condé Nast magazines Vanity Fair and Vogue while also accepting commercial assignments from the J. Walter Thompson agency. Steichen had already established himself as a great portraitist in the early of years of the century when, given only two minutes to complete his assignment, he had captured a perfect likeness of J.P. Morgan. The portraits he now took for Condé Nast of celebrities and statesmen are among the greatest ever created for the depth of character the photographer revealed in his subjects. While still in France, in an era when the halftone process first allowed magazines to illustrate their pages with photographs, Steichen had taken some of the earliest fashion photographs, of gowns by Poiret, for Art et Décoration. At Vogue, he took over from Adolph de Meyer and thoroughly modernized the magazine's approach to fashion, creating for it the image it still holds today as the arbiter of fashion.
In his personal life, Steichen was an inveterate womanizer. He was married three times. The first, to an incredibly neurotic woman named Clara Smith, ended in divorce. The second, and by far the happiest, ended when his beloved wife Dana succumbed to leukemia in 1957. After that, Steichen suffered from a belated mid-life crisis. Helen Gee, who many years after Stieglitz's 291 had closed, opened in Greenwich Village one of the country's first commercial photography galleries, recalls in Limelight: A Memoir being chased by Steichen through his apartment while he was recovering from a broken leg and on crutches. Finally, Steichen then age 81, married Joanna Taub, more than fifty years his junior. It was she who edited and wrote the text for the present volume.
Steichen's Legacy, published in 2000 by Knopf, is as handsome a tribute to this great photographer as one could wish for. It begins with an essay by Steichen's widow describing their necessarily short time together (Steichen died at age 94). Though well written and respectful of Steichen's accomplishments, the writer uses the opportunity to lash out at her deceased husband for his authoritarianism and need to exert complete control. She also takes shots at those, such as Steichen's daughters Mary and Kate, who showed her unkindness during the course of her marriage. The essay may have some value for the light it shines on the Steichen's private life, but this would have been a much better book if one or two scholarly essays had been inserted in its place. Following the essay are over 300 photographs, most of them among Steichen's finest, divided into nineteen very arbitrary categories, each of them headed with a quote from Steichen, none of them particularly profound.. The reproductions, each of which takes up a full page, are of the finest quality and convey an excellent sense of the original prints.
In 1984, I took a course at Parsons in Making the Fine Print that was taught by George Tice who had been Steichen's last exhibition printer. He one day brought into class a limited edition portfolio of Steichen's photographs that he had recently printed under the direction of Joanna Steichen. All the most iconic images were there and some with which I had not previously been familiar. It was seeing the actual prints that brought home to me the extent of Steichen's genius. These were simply the finest photographs I'd ever seen. Except perhaps for Stieglitz, Steichen had no equal. It's unfair that he should be so little remembered today. One can only hope that better judgment will prevail and that he will once again enjoy the recognition he deserves.
October 15, 2007
So perfect. Steichen is like Stravinsky: he spans changes of style without ever ceasing to be himself; his mastery of light and mood signal him. His is more like five or six careers in one. I particularly like the photo-impressionism, the symbolist nocturnes of the 1910s; the celebrity portraits, the slick fashion and ad work from the 30s; the tremendous documentary work aboard U.S. Navy aircraft carriers in WWII. Then there's the Broadway stuff, the nature studies, the flowers, the nudes. It's all so, so good.
May 12, 2008
Joanna Steichen's commentary on the photographs and on their life together are interesting and revealing. Wonderful large plates. Lots of Steichen quotes.
Deepened my appreciation for his art.
Deepened my appreciation for his art.
February 14, 2009
Nice comprehensive overview of Steichen's work.
October 17, 2014
Includes a few of Steichen's photos that you don't usually see. Joanna learned everything she knew about his photography from him- it makes this an interesting perspective.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews