In nineteen twenty-three Vanity Fair called Edward Steichen "the greatest of living portrait photographers". In his early years Steichen created softly focused, expressive images that echoed the influences of Stieglitz and other art photographers of the beginning of the twentieth century. His first love was painting and it prompted him to travel to Paris in nineteen hundred. His painting influences are present in his early work especially that of the Impressionists. He achieved these effects by blurring the lens with petroleum jelly. Steichen began experimenting with color photography in nineteen hundred and four and was one of the first people in the United States to us the Lumiere Autochrome process. It was during World War I Steichen's involvement with aerial photography that lead him to denounce impressonic photography of his past for realism. The dreamlike qualities gave way to a clean geometry of Modern Art.
At the end of the war Steichen became involved in commercial photography which could be seen in Conde Nast, Vogue and Vanity Fair. Steichen's celebrity portraits captured the public's imagination of the Stars of the time, while it set new standards for photographic portraiture with the use of dramatic lighting, bold compositions and sharpened focus.
There is not much Edward Steichen did not do and do extremely well. Landscapes, architecture, theater, dance and war photography are all included in his portfolio. I am drawn to the soft treatment of his female figures and the organic themes woven with his portraiture, a feminine quality to his landscapes and the simplistic drama. Steichen was not defined by one genre. Being a metal smith I enjoy creating jewelry, sculpture and hollowware. But society tries to force artists to define themselves as one thing or another.
Steichen's early work started with a soft focus, a willowy atmospheric environment and by the nineteen twenties and thirties Steichen's perfectionism for lighting and design had changed fashion photography. Posing the subject, lighting the environment or dressing the background no detail to small would escape him. Always an artist at heart Steichen at the age of forty-three sick and tired of being poor went too work for Vanity Fair where his portraits brought him a new fame. Steichen continuously was reinventing himself, he kept finding new influences and honing his skills. I see influences of his earlier work in some of his portraitures were he seems to marry some of the past like the organic nature with his present, like the portrait of Gloria Swanson were Steichen draped her face in a black lace veil.
I felt from viewing Steichen's work that his paint training early on allowed him to design with his camera. His treatment of woman, nudes and landscapes have a painterly quality about them.
In nineteen thirty-nine Steichen retired to his garden to grow delphiniums. As I stated before he does nothing if he doesn't do it well. He mastered gardening as well as becoming a respected member of the French Horticultural Society. But World War II refocused Steichen 's photography direction once again.
Steichen put on a Naval uniform and devoted his talents to the War effort. In nineteen forty-five Steichen became Director of the US Naval Photographic Institute where he was in charge of the Publication of the Navy's Combat along with organizing exhibits at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Later when Steichen became the Director of the Museum of Modern Art he organized the most popular exhibition in the history of Photography The Family Man.
Edward Steichen has been heralded as one of the most famous photographers in the history of American Art. Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by John F. Kennedy. Long recognized for his talents as a photographer, neglected as a painter. Which I feel gave Steichen the eye which to see through the view finder.
Steichen died two days short of his ninety-fourth birthday on March twenty-fifth, nineteen hundred seventy-three.