From Library Journal
Edward Steichen (1879-1973) produced many of his strongest photographs from the 1890s to World War I, the period covered here in examples from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. Steichen took up photography as a teenager and by the age of 23 was headed toward celebrity status as his photographs won the admiration of artists as well as fellow photographers. He was in demand as a portraitist of the rich and famous but produced some of his finest work in the portraits of other artists and in nude studies. His photographs of the Flatiron Building and other New York scenes have defined those spaces since. Steichen's misty, moody, subtle, multilayered photographs--made from experimental, painterly printing methods of the period--are reproduced here in amazing fidelity through four-color digital offset lithography. Smith (department of photographs, Metropolitan Museum of Art) provides a carefully researched and highly readable biographical and interpretive essay that illuminates the diverse influences on Steichen. Highly recommended for all photography and fine art collections.-Kathleen Collins, Bank of America Corporate Archives, San Francisco Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


G.S. Taylor, The Boston Book Review
Features reproductions of the finest quality. . . . This is crucial because of the variety of photographic processes [Steichen] used. . . .


The Art Newspaper
. . . meticulously researched and readable biographical account of his activities . . . demonstrate a benchmark standard of excellence in academic publishing


Laura Cumming, The Evening Standard
This definitive edition includes all of Steichen's New York photographs. . .


The Art Newspaper
Meticulously researched and readable biographical account of his activities... demonstrate a benchmark standard of excellence in academic publishing.


Review
A definitive collection. . . .


Book Description
One of the most influential figures in the history of photography, Edward Steichen (1879-1973) was also one of the most precocious. Born in Luxembourg, raised in Wisconsin, and trained as a lithographer's apprentice, Steichen took up photography in his teens and by age twenty-three had created brooding tonalist landscapes and brilliant psychological studies that won the praise of Alfred Stieglitz in New York and Auguste Rodin in Paris, among others. Over the next decade, this young man--the preferred portraitist of the elite of two continents--was repeatedly acclaimed as the peerless master of the painterly photograph. This volume, covering the period from the late 1890s to World War I, highlights masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which houses the finest collection of Steichen's early work in the world, and reproduces them in near-facsimile through four-color digital offset lithography. Steichen worked with a designer's inventive eye, a Symbolist's poetic sensibility, an entrepreneur's charisma, and--above all--the originality and finesse of a creative and painstaking printer to establish ambitious new standards in artistic photography. Overlaying the subtle tone-poetry of his platinum prints with repeated washes of harmonious color, he created unforgettable images. In his three famous twilight views of New York's Flatiron Building, one of the landmarks of turn-of-the-century architecture, Steichen crafted a powerful symbol of a new age. His stunning sequence of Rodin's Balzac figure in the moonlight is presented here as are his nudes, with their frankly erotic sense of flesh and weight. And the intense energy of a decade comes to life in his portraits of a diverse cast ranging from Richard Strauss to J. P. Morgan, Maurice Maeterlinck to George Bernard Shaw--and Steichen himself, the founding auteur of a century of celebrity. In the accompanying text, Joel Smith explores Steichen's maturing artistry in the light of contemporary developments in photography, graphic design, and the decorative arts. This is a stunning visual record of the emergence of Steichen as a great artist and is one of the most important books to be published on his life and work in recent years.


Language Notes
Text: German


About the Author
Joel Smith is a former Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow in the Department of Photographs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

One of the most influential figures in the history of photography, Edward Steichen (1879-1973) was also one of the most precocious. Born in Luxembourg, raised in Wisconsin, and trained as a lithographer's apprentice, Steichen took up photography in his teens and by age twenty-three had created brooding tonalist landscapes and brilliant psychological studies that won the praise of Alfred Stieglitz in New York and Auguste Rodin in Paris, among others. Over the next decade, this young man--the preferred portraitist of the elite of two continents--was repeatedly acclaimed as the peerless master of the painterly photograph. This volume, covering the period from the late 1890s to World War I, highlights masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which houses the finest collection of Steichen's early work in the world, and reproduces them in near-facsimile through four-color digital offset lithography.

Steichen worked with a designer's inventive eye, a Symbolist's poetic sensibility, an entrepreneur's charisma, and--above all--the originality and finesse of a creative and painstaking printer to establish ambitious new standards in artistic photography. Overlaying the subtle tone-poetry of his platinum prints with repeated washes of harmonious color, he created unforgettable images. In his three famous twilight views of New York's Flatiron Building, one of the landmarks of turn-of-the-century architecture, Steichen crafted a powerful symbol of a new age. His stunning sequence of Rodin's Balzac figure in the moonlight is presented here as are his nudes, with their frankly erotic sense of flesh and weight. And the intense energy of a decade comes to life in his portraits of a diverse cast ranging from Richard Strauss to J. P. Morgan, Maurice Maeterlinck to George Bernard Shaw--and Steichen himself, the founding auteur of a century of celebrity. In the accompanying text, Joel Smith explores Steichen's maturing artistry in the light of contemporary developments in photography, graphic design, and the decorative arts.

This is a stunning visual record of the emergence of Steichen as a great artist and is one of the most important books to be published on his life and work in recent years.

FROM THE CRITICS

Andy Grundberg - New York Times Book Review

Edward Steichen (1879-1973) surely stands as the century's most interesting and problematic photographic talent, having negotiated a career that ranged from Whistlerian painter to fashion photographer, celebrity portraitist, military combat photo-grapher, and museum curator. Blessed with a redoubtable ego and what we now might call a marketing personality, he attached himself to powerful father figures who in turn helped him flourish -- starting with Alfred Stieglitz. Stieglitz controlled the world of art photography at the beginning of the century and, not surprisingly, Steichen became its first full-blown star. But, as the 56 plates in this exquisitely produced book make clear, there is a redeeming aspect to Steichen's ambition: his pictures are incredibly good. Whether a penumbral landscape, a twilit view of the Flatiron Building or a smoky nude, each print shows the effort of his labors to produce subtly colored tonal effects unmatched by other photographers even now.

Charles Taylor - Newsday

One of the moodiest of the season's books is Edward Steichen: The Early Years. The cover photo alone, a top-hatted coachman approaching the Flatiron Building in a green dusk, is a more delicate version of the images conjured by Victorian gaslight melodrama. Not all the images here are in that mood. But many seem to be emerging out of some misty vortex, as if we were being allowed only a momentary glimpse before they recede. There's a stunning portrait of a leonine Rodin standing in front of one of his sculptures wrapped in a cloak that, as Steichen renders it, might well be marble itself. And there's a nude titled "Figure With Iris" that suggests what Klimt might have come up with had he been a photographer.

Martin Levin - Toronto Globe & Mail

The brooding Steichen (1879-1973) was one of the century's most significant photographers. His painterly work is on brilliant display in this book, co-published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The book is dominated by portraits (J. P. Morgan, G. B. Shaw), but the haunting, green-tinted cover image of the Flatiron Building is flatly amazing.

- Houston Chronicle