Edward Steichen and his many careers

Steichen is one of several leading photographers who not only practiced painting early in their careers but maintained his interest in and commitment to painting. The panels above are from murals he was commissioned to do in the 1930s by some wealthy friends.

Steichen's personal commitment to modernism is evident in the paintings below.

When the American Fine Art Co. offered him a paid position he fixated on the idea of going to Paris 'where artist's of Rodin's stature' lived and worked. In 1900 he visited New York in order to meet Alfred Stieglitz. They bonded. Steichen sailed for Paris. He was included in the exhibition 'The New School of American Photography' in London, which then travelled to Paris. In 1902 he had his first solo exhibition in Paris in which he showed both paintings and photographs.

Steichen developed a very strong relationship with Rodin, and in 1908 named his second daughter Kate Rodina after Rodin. Rodin said of him:

"I consider Steichen a very great artist and the leading, the greatest photographer of the time. Before him, nothing conclusive had been achieved."

— Auguste Rodin

At this point Steichen was using many of the tools of a painter on his photographs, using paintbrushes to apply various emulsions, with the result that they ended up looking nothing like a photograph. He was also experimenting with colour photography.

Back in New York he moved into a home and studio at 291 Fifth Avenue, opposite Stieglitz's gallery. He helped Stieglitz set up and launch a new photography journal, Camera Work, the second issue of which was dedicated to his photography.

Steichen's photographs were the photographs that most frequently appeared in Camera Work during its publication from 1903 to 1917, with Stieglitz hailing him as "the greatest photographer that ever lived"

In 1903 Steichen married Clara Smith, a musician from Missouri whom he had met in Paris. In 1908 Edward's sister, Lilian Steichen married the poet Carl Sandburg. Steichen was to have many fruitful collaborations with his brother-in-law.

In 1911 Lucien Vogel, publisher of the French magazines Jardin des Modes and La Gazette du Bon Ton, challenged Edward Steichen to promote fashion as a fine art through photography. In his 1963 autobiography, Steichen would assert that these images, of gowns by Paul Poiret, “were probably the first serious fashion photographs ever made”.

In 1917 Steichen enlisted and became a first lieutenant in the newly formed photographic section of the US Army Signal Corps. During the Second Battle of the Marne in 1918 he was billeted for a week in his own home in Voulangis.

His wife, Clara brought a painful divorce suit against a friend whom she claimed had 'alienated her husband's affections'. Clara lost the case and the couple divorced in 1922.

There was no abrupt transition from the 'diffusion' effects of Steichen's pre-war photography to the much sharper, clearer 'straight' photography of the 1920s and 30s. Steichen evolved a much cleaner personal style partly through many studies of plants and flowers.

Steichen would, however, not take fashion photographs again until 1923. When he accepted the job as Chief Photographer for Condé Nast publications in 1923 it was taken for granted he would work under a pseudonym. Already known as both a famous art photographer and a painter, his employer assumed that Steichen would probably not wish to be associated with the purely commercial work he would be doing for Vogue and Vanity Fair. Steichen surprised everyone by insisting on the authorship of all of his magazine photography. He declared: “I also said if I made a photograph I would stand by it with my name; otherwise I wouldn’t make it.”

Steichen's work at Condé Nast was shaped by his technical mastery of light and lighting but he was also inspired by the works of the many avant-garde artists that he had come to know during his visits to Paris.

Lee Miller was one of Steichen's favourite models.

In Steichen's advertising work light is used, not only to make products look good, but also as a key compositional element in itself.

Between 1924 and 1931 Steichen, in addition to working for CondéNast. was under contract to the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson. In 1926 enormously successful but overworked, Steichen suffered a nervous breakdown. Two years later he bought a farm in Connecticut, where he began to cultivate flowers.

In 1938 - at the time probably the most famous photographer in the world, Steichen resigned from Coné Nast and closed his Manhattan studio. He and his second wife, Dana travelled to Mexico where he experimented with a 35mm Contax and Kodachrome colour film.

It is clear that Steichen approached his advertising work with supreme seriousness. As a member of industry bodies for advertising, Steichen worked hard to promote the role and possibilities of photography in advertising.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Edward Steichen was the most successful photographer in the advertising industry. Steichen's commercial work appeared regularly in Vanity Fair, Vogue, Ladies Home Journal, and almost every other popular magazine published in the United States.

At a time when photography was just beginning to replace drawings as the favored medium for advertising, Steichen helped transform the producers of such products as Welch's grape juice and Jergens lotion from small family businesses to national household names. He was most frequently chosen by agencies for products targeted toward women: his images depicted vivacious singles, earnest new mothers, and other stereotypically female life stages that reveal a great deal about the industry's perceptions of and pitches to this particular audience. [from the blurb on the jacket of Real Fantasies, Patricia Johnstone, below]

In 1941 Steichen, having been rejected for service, was busy working on an exhibition for MoMA, which after the attack on Pearl Harbour, became 'The Road to Victory' which was exhibited in 1942.

Steichen was invited by the United States Navy to serve as Director of the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit. In 1944, he directed the war documentary The Fighting Lady, which won the 1945 Academy Award for Best Documentary.