These self-portraits, made over a period of 27 years, exemplify the evolution of Steichen’s style and intentions from his time as a member of the Photo-Secession to his work as a leading commercial photographer.

In the earliest image, he holds a palette, modeling the belief that the success of photography as art could only be achieved through painterly handicraft and mastery. This notion is further attested to by visible brushstrokes in the print.

The next portrait, made around 1917, on the eve of Steichen’s participation in the war, shows a dramatic shift toward directness and clarity—the palette has been exchanged for a studio view camera.

In the third portrait, created during his tenure at Condé Nast, Steichen presents himself as an entrepreneurial observer. This image was later included as the only self-portrait in a Vanity Fair article that featured images of famous photographers taken by their colleagues.

Figure 1. Edward J. Steichen (American, born Luxembourg, 1879–1973). Self-Portrait with Brush and Palette, 1902. Gum bichromate print; 26.7 x 20 cm. Inscribed recto, lower left, in graphite: “Steichen / MXIIIVII”; verso unchecked. Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949.823. © 2015 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Figure 2. Edward J. Steichen (American, born Luxembourg, 1879–1973). Self-Portrait with Camera, c. 1917. Platinum print; 25 x 19.8 cm (image); 33.8 x 29.2 cm (paper). Restricted gifts of Brenda and Earl Shapiro and the Smart Family Foundation; Laura T. Magnuson Acquisition, Comer Foundation, the Mary and Leigh Block Endowment funds; restricted gifts of Sidney and Sondra Berman Epstein, Karen and Jim Frank, Marian Pawlick; Ethel T. Scarborough, Hugh Leander and Mary Trumbull Adams Memorial Endowment, Betty Bell Spooner funds; restricted gifts of Vicki and Thomas Horwich, Robin and Sandy Stuart; Samuel A. Marx Purchase Fund for Major Acquisitions, S. DeWitt Clough, Photographic Society, Irving and June Seaman Endowment, Morris L. Parker funds, 2008.243. © 2015 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Figure 3. Edward J. Steichen (American, born Luxembourg, 1879–1973). Self-Portrait, c. 1929. Gelatin silver print, probably printed by an assistant; 25.3 x 20.3 cm. The Mary and Leigh Block Endowment Fund, 1996.411. © 2015 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Steichen began his artistic career at the age of 16, working as a design apprentice in a Milwaukee lithographic firm, where he created photographs that were used as models for illustrated advertisements, such as in the image below. Later he recalled that his “first real effort in photography was to make photographs that were useful,” an approach to which he would return later in his career.[1]

From Munsey’s Magazine, November 1898.

 
In 1900 Steichen left Milwaukee and his job at a lithographic firm to pursue the artist’s life in Paris, where he befriended the sculptor Auguste Rodin, among other renowned figures, and participated in photography salons. To the right is his portrait of Rodin, a composite image that portrays the sculptor between two of his works. Steichen used two negatives to create this image—working in the darkroom to combine the silhouette of Rodin in front of his Monument to Victor Hugo with another, separate exposure of Le Penseur.

Steichen returned to the U.S. in 1902 and opened a portrait studio in New York. By then he was an aspiring painter and an accomplished photographer known for atmospheric photographs in the Pictorialist style—an aesthetic that valued retouching and evident handicraft and that aimed to distinguish fine-art photographers from ordinary professionals and hobbyists. He soon became the protégé of Alfred Stieglitz, a pioneering photographer and leading champion of American photography as an equal among the modern fine arts. Together, they opened the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, later known simply as 291, which first presented Picasso, Brâncusi, and a range of progressive photographers to the American public.

The two photographs titled Midnight Lake George are reverse images of each other. They show Steichen’s masterly use of a photographic process to achieve “painterly” effects. Gum bichromate emulsions have a short tonal range, meaning they cannot register vivid highlights and detailed shadow areas at the same time. Therefore, Steichen likely brightened the moon by brushing away some of the pigment during development, when the emulsion was still wet and malleable.

Also of note is the almost-vibratory appearance of the tree trunk and leaves. Gum printing is an additive process: photographers spread one layer of emulsion upon another to deepen the tone. Each time the paper is exposed, the negative must be lined up with the previously printed image, a practice known as “registering the negative.” The slight blurring suggests that Steichen did not register the negative with precision. Whether made in error or by design, effects like this emphasize the handcrafted nature of these photographs, an aspect that would have been important to the Pictorialists.

To learn more about Pictorialism and the related Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th century, click here to explore the Art Institute’s 2010 exhibition Apostles of Beauty: Arts and Crafts from Britain to Chicago.

Figure 1. Edward J. Steichen (American, born Luxembourg, 1879–1973). Rodin, Le Penseur, 1902. Gum bichromate print; 26.2 x 32.6 cm (image/paper/mount). Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949.825. © 2015 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Figure 2. Edward J. Steichen (American, born Luxembourg, 1879–1973). Midnight Lake George, 1904. Gum bichromate over platinum print; 39.2 x 50.6 cm. Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949.829. © 2015 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Figure 3. Edward J. Steichen (American, born Luxembourg, 1879–1973). Midnight Lake George, 1904. Gum bichromate over platinum print; 39.2 x 50.6 cm. Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949.830. © 2015 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

[1] Edward Steichen, A Life in Photography (Doubleday, 1963), chapter 1, n.p.

In 1906, seeking a change, Steichen moved back to France with his young family in tow, this time to the countryside outside Paris, where he immersed himself in European modern art. This gum bichromate print by fellow Photo-Secessionist Gertrude Käsebier shows Steichen and his friends, as Käsebier or perhaps her daughter Hermine captioned the original negative, “posed in the spirit of the French Impressionists” in Voulangis, the town where Steichen rented a villa.[1] This idyll ended in 1914 when, under the threat of advancing German troops, Steichen and his family fled back to the United States.

Figure 1. Gertrude Käsebier (American, 1852–1934). Serbonne, 1901. Gum bichromate print; 24.5 x 18.7 cm (image/paper). Julien Levy Collection, gift of Jean and Julien Levy, 1978.1075.

[1] Gertrude Käsebier. Edward Steichen, Frances Delehanty, Charlotte Smith (Paddock), and Hermine Käsebier (Turner) at Voulangis, France, posed in the spirit of the French Impressionists, 1901. Glass negative; 8 x 10 in. The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

The First World War, sometimes called the first “modern” war, was marked by groundbreaking advances in technology, including photography. Though Steichen intended to be “a photographic reporter, as Mathew Brady had been in the Civil War,” he quickly abandoned this romantic notion to help implement one of the newest weapons of war—aerial photography.[1] Taking images from airplanes made it possible not only to observe a wide swath of the battlefield, but also to track daily changes on the front lines.

The French and British militaries had made great advances with this technology for intelligence purposes, yet the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) had no established program. Steichen was assigned to the newly formed Photographic Section, led by Major James Barnes, and together they oversaw the training and outfitting of aerial-photography and surveillance units that would prove their usefulness over the course of the war. Steichen also worked to standardize print sizes, materials, cameras, and plates across the various national armies in order to simplify the cooperation between the Allied forces.

Photographic Section, Air Service, AEF. Major Steichen and Base Photo Section at Headquarters, Air Service, Paris, France, c. 1918. Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.

 
[1] Edward Steichen, A Life in Photography (Doubleday, 1963), chap. 5, n.p.

In the AEF Steichen presided over training programs, darkroom operations, print distribution, and supply channels—information delivery operations that required maximum clarity and detail as well as efficiency of production. Although he likely participated in several test flights, and had learned to fly before the war, there is no evidence that Steichen took operational photographs himself during the war.

While on military duty, Steichen helped adapt aerial photography for intelligence purposes, implementing surveillance programs that had a lasting impact on modern warfare. He later reflected:

The wartime problem of making sharp, clear pictures from a vibrating, speeding airplane ten to twenty thousand feet in the air had brought me a new kind of technical interest in photography. . . . Now I wanted to know all that could be expected from photography.[1]

Steichen began to value photography’s capacity to transmit and encode information, and he soon proved himself a savvy collaborator and producer rather than a solitary auteur—new roles that enabled his subsequent groundbreaking career in magazine and advertising photography.

Following the armistice on November 11, 1918, Steichen, by then promoted to major, remained in France to direct the extensive documentation of significant battle sites. He emerged from the war demonstrating not only a greater appreciation for the “striking pictorial effects” of aerial photographs but also celebrating the camera’s capacity to convey “neither opinions nor prejudice, but indisputable facts.”[2]

In the numerous reports he authored Steichen emphasized his respect for the photograph as a picture of codes and persuasion, a concept he would later apply to mass-media images.

Figure 1. Unknown photographer. Captain Edward Steichen and Camera, Serving with the American Expeditionary Forces in France, 1918. Helga Sandburg Crile Collection.

[1] Edward Steichen, A Life in Photography (Doubleday, 1963), chap. 5, n.p.

[2] Edward Steichen, “American Aerial Photography at the Front,” The Camera: The Magazine for Photographers (July 1919), p. 359, 366.