Edward Steichen: The Royal Photographic Society Collection

92 Pages·1997·11.862 MB·English

by  Edward Steichen

Edward
Steiche
The Royal Photographic
Society CoJ
'^^ V
liliiioillll,,,,.
1
CHARTA
.2
.

Kdwartl Sleichen
**
Edward
Steichen
The Royal Photographic
Society Collodion
CHARTA
GraphicDesign Firstpublishedforthe
GabrieleNason exhibition held inApril 1993
atthe IstitutodiCulturaSanta
EditorialCoordination
Mariadelle Grazie, Mestre
EmanuelaBelloni
Editing
SabinaCortese
Translation
oftheTextbyPaoloCostantini
Scriptum srl, Rome
Press Office
SilviaPalombiArte &Mostre, Milan
Production
Amilcare PizziArtigrafiche,
CiniselloBalsamo, Milan
Cover
DoloresDel Rio andOrsonWelles,
1940?
c.
Back cover
TheFlatiron-Evening,NewYork,
1906
Reprintedwith permission
ofJoannaT. Steichen
© 1997
Edizioni Charta, Milan
EdizioniCharta
©RoyalPhotographic Society, viaCastelvetro9, Milan
Bath
tel. [phone]
All RightsReserved fax [phone]
ISBN 88-8158-105-1 Printedin Italy
Table of Contents
7 "L'eternel du transitoire": portrait ofthe artist as
a photographer
Paolo Costantini
19 EdwardJ. Steichen HoruFRPS and the Royal
Photographic Society
PamRoberts
23 Plates
72 ListofPlates
75 WritingsAnthology
83 Biography
85 Bibliographical Notes
^
STDQtM
80W. 40H St.
MEWVOMC
vm0,
W/
/ tka
tf///M
(/
-^
W
m
^2
/ 1 S/r m
mc
%
4. '>
i j
0%
/ ft f c i iys
W-<
//.
\
'
"LYU'iiu'l (lu transitoire": portrait
of thf artist as a photographer
Paolo Costantini
Curator, Photographs Collection,
attheCanadian Centrefm irchitecture, Montreal
Spring L900. A few weeks after his twenty-firs! stage, were also crucial as regards the redefini-
birthday, EdwardJ. Steichen, the "brilliant art tion of the photographer's status, the emer-
student" who had exhibited his first photo- genceofnewquestionsconcerningthenature
graphs at the second Philadelphia Photogra- and normsofphotography, thedefinition and
phic Salon, 1899, Left Milwaukee for Europe. (realion ofWhat mightbe described as the in-
Willi his friend Carl Bjorncrantz, member of tellectual biographyofthe modern photogra-
the Milwaukee An Students' League (a club pher,andhencehisrepresentation,hisportrait.
founded and presided over by Steichen him-
self) he embarked on the French steamer Autumn 1900. SteichenwenttoLondonwhere
Champlain, Afterdisembarkingat Le I lavre, the theAmerican photographerFredHollandDay
twoyoung friends took theirbicycles and rode was mounting an exhibition ofhis own works
eagerly toward Paris, stopping on the way to and those of other American photographers
take photographs and draw sketches. at the Royal Photographic Society. This exhi-
Someone- on board ship had directed them to bition, where Steichen was invited to help in
Montmaitie: there they found a room to rent the final stages of choosing the works and
and hurriedimmediatelytothemajorAuguste mounting them, was presented to the per-
Rodin exhibition at the Pavilion de l'Alma, plexed English public under the ambitious ti-
right opposite the gates of the World Exhibi- tle "The New School ofAmerican Photogra-
tion. phy."3Daywassoenthusiasticabouttheyoung
Twoyearsearlier, even the Milwaukee newspa- Steichen'swork thathe immediatelyincluded
pershaddevotedspace tothecontroversytrig- him (with twenty-oneprints) in the exhibition
gered by Rodin's statue of Balzac, which that introduced a new generation ofphotog-
Steichensawbadlyreproducedinalocaldaily. raphers to Europe.
Sixty-five years later, in his autobiography, he This generation proposed a new idea ofpho-
was to remember it as: "the most wonderful tography and different approaches from the
thingI hadeverseen. Itwasnotjustastatueof European tradition. Not without triggering a
aman; itwastheveryembodimentofatribute bitter controversy. Some English newspapers
to genius. (...) It stirred up my interest in go- even referred toanAmerican "invasion,"criti-
ing to Paris (...)."1 cizing certain features of that photography,
A few days later Steichen went to the Louvre, which wasjudged to be "extreme," "insane,"
hewasastounded;inhisautobiographyhewas "brutal,"and "an insult to the public."
to remember it as "an experience forwhich I To the English visitors and critics the new
was totallyunprepared."2 American school seemed to subvert the tradi-
SteichenremainedinParisforthreeyearsand tionalconventionsandreferencesandsuppress
returned to New York in 1903. He was to go "nearly every quality" usually associated with
backtoFrance again later, buthisfirstyearsin photography. "Definition,""contrast,"and"de-
Europehadacrucialinfluencenotonlyonthe tail,"which had till then been considered the
personal lifeofthismajorfigurein the history peculiar and indispensable features ofa good
ofphotography thiscentury. In fact these first photographic print, in fact became subordi-
three years of the twentieth century, when nated to tonal and compositional "values," to
Steichen made his entry on the international the treatment ofthe surfaces, to the attention
todifferencesinreflectedlight,toseeking"har- floorof83, Boulevard Montparnasse.
mony" rather than "truth:" "One strives for He attended theAcademieJulian foracouple
— —
harmony Steichenwastowrite harmonyin ofweeks,butsoon leftbecause hefoundittoo
color, in values and in arrangement."5 rigidly academic. He frequently went to the
The photographers claimed a different atten- Louvre,wherehestudiedthe individual paint-
tion, they underlined a profound change "in ingsverycarefully,andwonderedwhetherpho-
taste and in ideas."6And in fact Steichen, the tography were able to produce works such as
young art student, spoke ofsecessionin clarify- those.
ingthe positionsoftheAmerican school: "itis FredHollandDaycame to Pariswith the exhi-
to a secession better than anything else that bition he had already puton in London. This
the newmovementin photographycan be lik- exhibition ofthe "nouvelle ecole americaine"
ened."7 A rebellion against "conventions," a was held at the Photo-Club de Paris in March
"reaction" to the "stereotyped formulae, that 1901 and included thirty-four prints by Stei-
checked all spirits oforiginality" and that vis- chen, who was now recognized as being "a la
iblybroughtthe aspirations oftheyoung, sen- tete du mouvementamericain."10
sitive photographers closer to the "movement SteicheninvitedFredHollandDaytosharehis
in modern art." Steichen makes explicitrefer- studio and there he painted a portrait ofhim
ences to the French Impressionists, to Whis- whichhesentto thejuryoftheeleventh Salon
tler,toAlexander,totheoldmasters,toTurner, de la Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts. The
and toJapanese art. For him the new move- portrait, nowlost,was accepted and exhibited
mentwas "more concernedwith artthan with intheSalon thatopenedon22April 1901 ina
,
dark room text-books," hewas convinced that galleryofthe GrandPalaisinAvenue d'Antin.
"the major obstacle" to photography becom- The painting was noted, among others, by
ingfullyacceptedintheartworldwasprecisely Tristan Klingsor Leclere, who in his account
the way in which photography had presented ofthe Salons refers to it as an "excellent por-
itselftill then: its conventiona—l nature, its lack trait."11
of o—riginality, and above all a crucial prob- Steichen was accepted by the Salon that was
lem its incapacity to stir "the great indiffer- considered by commentators to be the most
entpublic." "precious" for the public and the most "favo-
BeforeleavingLondon,Steichenphotographed rable"totheartists,12whereonly932workswere
the elderly English painter George Frederick admitted (asopposed to the 5000in the Salon
Watts: this photograph was the firstofaseries des Artistes, open to artists exhibiting for the
of portraits of European artists, his own per- first time), where you breathed a un "atmo-
sonalgalleryofleadingfiguresin theartworld, sphere differente," "plus legere et plus gaie,
in which, he was to say later, he "hoped to in- plusvivante etplus moderne,"13where, in the
clude painters, sculptors, literary men and section devoted to sculpture, the fragment of
musicians,"8 with the ambition of portraying Rodin's monument to VictorHugo, "d'une pu-
"laphysionomieintime,lecaractereprofond."9 issance incomparable," was also finally exhib-
ited.14
Back in Paris, Steichen settled on the Rive Alfred Stieglitz, the major figure in that new
Gauche, in astudiofull oflighton the second photographicmovement,thesoulandleading-