Steichen: A Life in Photography [Edward]

249 pp. Steichen, Edward (27 March 1879–25 March 1973), photographer and curator of museum exhibitions, was born Edouard Jean Steichen in Luxembourg, the son of Jean-Pierre Steichen, a copper miner, and Marie Kemp, a milliner. The family immigrated to Milwaukee in 1881. Edward Steichen began his distinguished career with an apprenticeship (1894–1898) at the Milwaukee American Fine Art Company, where he learned lithography and the basics of design. At the same time, with encouragement from his mother, he studied painting at the Milwaukee Art Students League. In 1895, in the decade when photography was just beginning a long struggle to be accepted as equal to the fine arts, he began to teach himself photography, and that medium progressively dominated his practice. Yet his persona remained that of the painter. In one of his most famous early self-portraits (1901), Steichen's technically complex photograph poses him as a painter, with palette, brushes, and romantic costume. He did not abandon painting until 1922. During the first decade of the twentieth century, Steichen's extensive knowledge of European arts helped his friend and colleague Alfred Stieglitz introduce modern painting to American audiences.--American National Biography