Edward Steichen: A Life In Photography

New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1963. Hardbound. VG/fair, dj as tears, corners slightly bumped. Pages are clean and tight. Black cloth with black illustrated dustjacket. unpaginated, with 249 bw plates and a detailed chronology at the end. About 250 pages or so. Edward Steichen (1879-1973) was a major figure in the evolution of American photography and exhibition design. Having begun his artistic career as a painter, he was later a founding photographer of the Photo-Secession group, together with Gertrude Kasebier, Clarence White, Alvin Langdon Coburn, and Alfred Stieglitz. With Stieglitz, he first exhibited European "modern art" at Gallery 291 in New York City, and published the seminal journal Camera Work. Contents: Milwaukee: apprenticeship in painting and photography -- Europe: a new world opens up -- New York: Stieglitz and the photo-secession -- Introducing modern art to America -- World War I and Voulangis -- To Greece with the Duncan Isadorables -- Fashion photography and fabric designs -- The theater: photographing the reality behind the make-believe -- Introducing naturalism into advertising -- On portraits and portraiture -- New York, Connecticut, and Mexico -- World War II: adventures in the Pacific -- The Museum of Modern Art and "The family of man" -- The shad-blow tree -- Freedom and the artist.