Steichen: A BiographyNot since 1929 has there been a biography of Edward Steichen, photographer, painter, and a pivotal yet enigmatic figure in twentieth-century art and culture on two continents. Steichen, who died just short of his ninety-fourth birthday, was fifty and internationally famous when Steichen the Photographer was written by his brother-in-law, the poet and biographer Carl Sandburg. Now Penelope Niven, whose highly acclaimed biography of Sandburg appeared in 1991, has written the first comprehensive biography of Steichen. Here, she illuminates the full story of Steichen's avant-garde life in Paris and New York and his roles in introducing modern art to the American audience, in shaping aerial reconnaissance photography in World War I and navy photography in World War II, in revolutionizing American fashion and portrait photography through his years as chief of photography at Vanity Fair and Vogue, and in creating the unprecedented photographic exhibition The Family of Man, which has touched a global audience of millions since it opened in 1955. Searching the world over for Steichen's letters, paintings, and photographs, Niven has reconstructed his major, pioneering achievements. Steichen's enduring contributions to the fine art of photography have not been fully recognized because they have not, until now, been fully documented and placed within the context of his times and his turbulent, romantic, and often tragic personal life. With the help of public and private papers and interviews, Niven builds a compelling portrait of the charismatic, complex, very human man behind the camera. We explore Steichen's gardens and his artful love of nature, manifested in his obsessiveachievements as a master breeder of delphinium. We step inside his intimate, private world--and view his passionate attachment to his mother, his sister, and his two daughters; the heartrending battles of his first marriage; and his alleged and actual love affairs. This biography also explores Steichen's catalytic relationships with August Rodin, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Alfred Stieglitz, Gertrude and Leo Stein, and Carl and Lilian Steichen Sandburg. "Steichen was a rebel, stubbornly independent and largely self-taught, who also believed passionately in the fundamental intersections of art and life," Penelope Niven writes. As this biography reveals, Edward Steichen's life, like his art, was brilliantly original, dramatic, and unforgettable. |
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Contents
Preface ix | 1 |
THE LAND OF FREEDOM 18541889 | 13 |
TAKING THE REINS 18891895 17 | 15 |
Copyright | |
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AEMC LC Alfred Stieglitz Alvin Langdon Coburn American April artist ASA Yale August Auguste Rodin beautiful Caffin Camera Notes Carl Sandburg chen Clara Steichen Coburn color Condé Nast CSC UI Dana Demachy Dream Girl Edward Steichen Emmy Eugene Meyer exhibition February following plate twelve France Fred Holland Day friends gallery garden Georgia O'Keeffe Gertrude Käsebier Gertrude Stein Glorious Romance Harcourt Helga Sandburg Ibid images interview with PEN January July Kate Katharine Rhoades later Leo Stein Lilian Steichen living March Margaret Sandburg interview Marion Beckett Mary Steichen Calderone Matisse Mildred Aldrich Milwaukee Modern Art MoMA mother Museum of Modern Newhall painter paintings Paris Paula Sandburg Photo-Secession photogra Picasso Poet portrait prints Rodin Sadakichi Hartmann Salon second page following Stei Steichen the Photographer Steichen to Alfred Steichen to Carl Steichen wrote studio summer tographs Umpawaug Voulangis wanted Wayne Miller wrote to Stieglitz young