Family Of Man, The

Book Description

Hailed as the most successful exhibition of photography ever assembled, The Family of Man opened at The Museum of Modern Art, New York in January 1955. This book, the permanent embodiment of Edward Steichen's monumental exhibition, reproduces all of the 503 images that Steichen described as "a mirror of the essential oneness of mankind throughout the world. Photographs made in all parts of the world, of the gamut of life from birth to death." A classic and inspiring work, The Family of Man has been in print for more than forty years. The New York Times once wrote that it "symbolizes the universality of human emotions." First produced by a magazine publisher and sold by the hundreds of thousands on newsstands and in airport shops, The Family of Man has been in more recent years published by the Museum. It has been continuously in print since 1955; the present Thirtieth Anniversary Edition was prepared from original photographs with all new duotone plates in 1986.

Customer Reviews:

Timeless Insight Into The Universal Quality Of All People.......2007-09-08

This is my favorite book. I purchased it when I was 18, and loved black and white photography. I am now 65, and still see the same basic beauty in the photographs. It's not about the 1950's, or showing American culture. It shows how universal and similiar all people of all races and cultures are. It shows young children playing, people falling in love, weddings, births, hard work, wars, death, grieving, and even hope from various people and countries from our planet Earth. One family. One people. This is a collection of love, not about a specific time, or place, or our differences. This is a book that shows our skin colors, clothes, and countries may change; but we are all the same.

Perhaps the best photographic book ever published.......2007-05-12

I first found this book at Foyle's in London, about 35 years ago, and it struck me. Since then, I bought five copies of the Family of Man, but no one remained in my home, because ever I felt the need to give this book to someone I loved or trusted.
What is making this book so precious to me?
First the idea itself of collecting pictures from the whole world (remember, when Steichen launched his project, the Cold War and the related hysteria was at its peak). This to demonstrate that all the human beings have to pass through the same events in their life: birth, growth, education, emotions, work, love, children, reflection, death. This apparently trivial concept leads to a conclusion by far less trivial: we all do belong to one family, our species, the humans (by the way, this thinking had not so great success in the past, nor the present seems to be more benevolent).
The Family of Man is exactly the visual demonstration of such a concept, by comparing the same events as viewed from different geographic and cultural perspectives, by means of photos from renowned or unknown photographers (of course, the pictures from the US are prevailing in numbers for logistics and statistical reasons: it was by far more simple for an US photographer to even simply receive the news of the Steichen project than for a photographer in Rwanda or in the USSR).
Steichen and his assistants made an impressive selection, shortlisting 503 pictures from the over 2 million they received. By the way, Steichen was a photographer, and his selection also considered the aesthetic side of the question: most of the pictures selected simply are wonderful.
The result is this book. I think no one on this planet can miss it, because The Family of Man is representative of a large part of our culture and on our very nature.
To give an example, in my opinion this book is at the same emotional and rational level as Homer's Odyssey, Dante's Divine Comedy, Melville's Moby Dick, primo Levi's If this is a Man, or the ancient Greek lyrics, to quote some comparisons.
I hope it will continue to be published; we, the humans, desperately need it.

i love this book........2007-04-10

I am so glad Family of Man is still available. I would also suggest that in conjunction with this book, you offer Family of Women, and Family of Children.

This book is a magic book--absolutely essential. (NOT recent editions, though)........2005-11-24

I've always thought of THE FAMILY OF MAN as a magic book, ever since discovering it on the family bookshelves when I was a young child. The thing was (above and beyond the book's excellence and power to move anyone with a heart), for many years it seemed that every time I would delve into this book, there would be at least one new picture, one I could swear I'd never seen before. I still sometimes have that experience (although nowadays I tend to attribute it to an aging mind). I do remember at first being most impressed and guiltily fascinated by the powerful pictures of birth, which my siblings, our friends and I would look at, giggling in horrified wonder, and by those "nasty" (actually, beautiful) pictures of breastfeeding. I still remember our mom explaining that there was nothing "nasty" about any of those pictures, that they were true and lovely. That was only one of many life lessons she taught us, using images from this book.

Each image is a whole story, a world, unto itself, and the beauty is the connection of each one to all the others, just as we are all connected to each other in the family of man (as well as to all that the world comprises, like it or not). As others have written, I have given numerous copies of this book as gifts over the years. (That was not so successful when I gave it to my brother and sister-in-law as part of their wedding present. My brother had grown up with it, but his bride had never seen it before, and was somewhat horrified and disgusted by it; unfathomable to me. I don't think it lasted long in their home, if it ever made it there at all.)

Sometime in the mid-'90s I bought a new copy in a bookstore, and was upset and very disappointed to discover how it had been changed and messed up in that edition (which was, I believe, put out under the aegis of Disney's Buena Vista Entertainment). The look and feel of the paper were wrong, to begin with: too bright white and thick. Pictures had been cropped differently and (I think I'm remembering correctly on this), in some cases, laid out somewhat differently. I recommend avoiding such copies (I don't know what is being published now in that regard, or if the book is out of print, or if they've gone back to the original look and feel); the differences, though subtle, really are jarring and very much diminish the quality. This 'brightened' version came in the wake of a spate of "Family of..." books (Women, Children, and I think maybe a couple of others), that always seemed opportunistic, a little crass, and pitiful in their inability to approach the fundamental, universal, inevitable feeling of the original. Not that these others were without merit, but almost always, an original will far overshadow any sequels or copies that come after it. That's certainly the case here.

A Timeless Classic.......2005-09-11

I first purchased this book over 30 years ago as a budding photographer. It inspired and uplifted me then and does today. As I finished my term as president of a state professional photographers organization, this was the gift I selected to give to the members of my Board of Directors.
Eric Newhall

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Surprising!
A Picture Rarely if Ever Seen
And this is how tender Maleness can be
Wonderfully moving collection.
A Moving Tribute to Masculine Beauty

At Ease: Navy Men of World War II
Evan Bachner , Wayne Miller (Photographer) , Horace Bristol (Photographer) , Victor Jorgensen (Photographer) , and Barrett Gallagher (Photographer)
Manufacturer: Harry N. Abrams
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Men of WW II: Fighting Men at Ease
Physique: Classic Photographs of Naked Athletes
Champion
The Male Ideal: Lon of New York and the Masculine Physique
Locker Room Nudes / Dieux du Stade: The French National Rugby Team

ASIN: 0810948052

Book Description

In the years following World War II, images of comradeship, particularly of men being physically close, largely disappeared from the public record. But, as these stunning photographs attest, ordinary American men in the extraordinary circumstances of World War II were affectionate, winsome, and playful-disarmingly innocent in a time of cataclysmic peril.

Led by photography giant Captain Edward J. Steichen, the U.S. Naval Aviation Photographic Unit was organized during the war to record the daily experiences of Navy men all over the world and provide newspapers and magazines with images to promote the American cause. The unit's photographers, which included Wayne Miller, Horace Bristol, Victor Jorgensen, and Barrett Gallagher, took thousands of pictures of soldiers as they relaxed, trained, prepared for the next battle, and waited.

This book brings together more than 150 of those photographs, culled from the National Archives, including many that have never before been published. Whereas World War II imagery tends to be dominated by combat photography and monumental depictions of weaponry, these photographs offer a rare, intimate look at the Navy men themselves.

Customer Reviews:

Surprising!.......2007-04-28

I picked up this book because my dad and my grandfather served in the US Navy in WW II. I didn't see them or their ships in this book but wow! There are some beautiful photos here! Crisp black and white prints, impressive use of light, some clever composition... and so many strong young men, muscled and slender.

There is a sensuousness to many of the pictures that reminded me of Mapplethorpe's work, although none of them show full frontal nudity. As a collection the photos appear a bit homoerotic, although individually many of the images are fine art. The book is more about excellent photography and gorgeous young men than it is about wartime.

A Picture Rarely if Ever Seen.......2006-07-02

As an historical reenactor, and daughter of a WWII Navy veteran, I am constantly on the outlook for books and information on the lesser known ideas and culture surrounding WWII. This book was a real eye opener! While the author is open about his sexuality and the pictures were no doubt hand picked with a certain agenda, they show a world of innocence that was unconcerned with homophobic ideas of how a man should or should not act. Being together for long periods of time in uncertain circumstances, deep friendships definitely form. Your buddy could be the one to save your life during an attack, or you might loose him in a split second from a torpedo. As a woman, I can imagine the close friendships that would form today under similar circumstances among women, and I imagine men during that time were not held back by all the macho ideas of today. A beautiful book with striking photography, this stands as an important contribution to understanding our father's and grandfather's lives during WWII.

And this is how tender Maleness can be.......2005-01-01

Without a doubt this book will touch the memories and hearts of everyone who pauses to slowly peruse these casual photographs of men at sea in World War II. Without the overtones of trying to make a statement about the camaraderie that accompanies men off at war, these photographs simply follow a healthy group of sailors resting on board ship, working at their tasks, bonding in the bunk rooms and in play on the decks and the foc'sle. There is an obvious physical relationship that is transmitted in the gentlest ways, further proof that men together find the emotional and physical support so needed in the time of isolation from the world.

It is to Evan Bachner's credit that he shares this truly sensitive body of work with the public at a time when we all need to understand not only the plight of the men away at war today, but of the common threads of pansexuality that have never been a threat but only a solace in a world infected with prejudice. Grady Harp, December 2004

Wonderfully moving collection........2004-10-08

Too often, when modern schoolchildren consider WW2, they see the parades of elderly veterans, stooped, wrinkled, bemedaled, but essentally OLD.

What the compiler of this book has managed to do is to collect a wide range of photo material, much of it of very high quality, which shows the young men who fought WW2 as they were then. That is, as young men. Slim, upright, happy, fit. Often little more than schoolboys themselves. In that regard, this book is reminiscent of Herbert List's book "Junge Manner".

I was so impressed with my book that I've ordered a second copy to be put into the library of the secondary school at which I'm a governor. WW2 seems to be popular in history lessons. Let the children of today see the youths of yesteday as they were at their prime.

A Moving Tribute to Masculine Beauty.......2004-10-08

Looking through the photographs in this book was like viewing a beautiful dream. The photography is excellent as it was done by the military's professional staff of photographers. The sailors are fascinating to look at. They are in peak physical condition and their faces are expressive and feeling. A part of history with enormous importance has been catalogued and preserved for the future by this wonderful author. Thank you.

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Some Famous Faces
great delivery and service
Great Artistist Legacy
Extremely Well Reproduced Images and Personal Insights
For Photography Lovers & Memoir Readers Everywhere!

Steichen's Legacy
Joanna Steichen
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Similar Items:

Edward Steichen : The Early Years
Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set - Volume I & II: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs
Alfred Stieglitz: Photographs and Writings (Alfred Stieglitz)
Real Fantasies: Edward Steichen's Advertising Photography
Pictorialism into Modernism: The Clarence H. White School of Photography

ASIN: 0679450769
Release Date: 2000-09-26

Amazon.com

Edward Steichen was a visionary determined to show that photography was an art form as well as a craft, which explains the painterly style characterizing his early images. His portraits resonate with echoes of Whistler and Sargent; like Whistler, he used terms such as pastorale and nocturne as titles for his landscapes to suggest their affinity with music. His experiments with color images of flowers, dating as early as 1907, look back to the paintings of Fantin-Latour yet anticipate Robert Mapplethorpe. He explored photography's potential to immortalize the chance play of shadows on flat surfaces and the unexpected beauty of decayed plants. Beyond his artistic eye, Steichen's sensitivity and daring were evident in the international photographic exhibition The Family of Man that he organized for the Museum of Modern Art in 1955. The text of Steichen's Legacy is written by the photographer's widow, Joanna, who met Steichen when he was 80 and she was 28. Though her intensely personal recollections are a unique window on Steichen's life and an excellent source of anecdote, they form an uneasy mix of art history and biography--the loving memories of one so intimate with Steichen do not form the most solid base for analyzing his work. Her choice of images, however, and the book's rich visual presentation make it a magnificent tribute to one of photography's great interpreters and innovators. His legacy is well served by the 300 high-quality duotones, tritones, and full-color images that illustrate this substantial volume, printed in Italy on fine art paper and a tour de force of book production. --John Stevenson

Book Description

A magnificent book--315 photographs by Edward Steichen, the man Auguste Rodin called "the greatest photographer of his time."

        This is the first gathering in thirty years of Steichen's photographs, spanning seven decades: the landscapes, the haunting studies of flowers, the portraits of friends and family, the still lifes and cityscapes. Here are fashion photographs taken during the fifteen years Steichen worked for Vogue. And here too are the breathtaking portraits he made for Vanity Fair: Colette, Noel Coward, Greta Garbo, Willa Cather, Isadora Duncan . . . William Butler Yeats, Henri Matisse, Thomas Mann . . . George Gershwin, Amelia Earhart, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (taken when he was governor of New York--a standard pose, the decisive leader in his chair--but later, when FDR was president, cropped by Steichen to show the sad, serious face of a visionary acquainted with suffering).

        In a personal and illuminating text, Joanna Steichen writes about her husband's passionate views on photography; about how he moved away from painting (his understanding and support of modernism helped bring the movement to this country); about his experiments with abstraction; about the repercussions of commercial success in his life as an artist; about how he and Joanna first met (through the mischievous intervention of Steichen's brother-in-law, Carl Sandburg) and how their relationship changed as they became lovers, man and wife and, finally, artist and assistant.

        Joanna Steichen writes about Steichen's days as a colonel in World War I, in charge of aerial photography for the Air Force in France, and then as a captain in the Navy--past the age of retirement--in World War II, in charge of combat photography in the Pacific. She writes about his years as the European art scout for his friend Alfred Stieglitz, and of how Steichen later designed the gallery for the Photo-Secession's 291 and arranged exhibitions of the work of Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso and Brancusi, long before these names were known in America. And she writes about the couple's farm in Connecticut, which Steichen landscaped out of woods and rocks and hollows and photographed over the years, as well as the new hybrid of delphinium Steichen produced and the sunflowers he raised and studied through his lens.

Carl Sandburg said: "A scientist and a speculative philosopher stands back of Steichen's best pictures. They will not yield their meaning and essence on the first look nor the thousandth--which is the test of masterpieces."

Steichen's Legacy is a book of masterpieces.

Customer Reviews:

Some Famous Faces.......2006-07-03

I originally ordered this book because my husband is distantly related to the photographer and found it to be a beautiful collection of Edward Steichen's work. His subjects run from flowers to sculptors and include several presidents and movie stars. Anyone interested in photography would enjoy this book.

great delivery and service .......2006-03-14

... wonderful condition. A pleasure to deal with.

Great Artistist Legacy.......2006-01-22

Why would a 26-year-old marry an 81-year-old? I don't know, but I am glad for the insight Joanna Steichen provided to Edward Steichen's personality and what his work was about. Her writing style is insightful, poetic, and surprisingly candid about Steichen, both his good side (his work) and his bad side (his person). She did a good job of interpreting what he was trying to do, how he was trying to do it, and the `language' he was using in his props, lighting, angles, and so forth. There was almost a subliminal language going on in some of the photographs that she clues us in on. Also, it was special seeing people like Gary Cooper, Charlie Chaplin, and Franklin Roosevelt when they were in their prime. It was also a treat seeing the great sculptor August Rodin, composer Sergio Rachmaninoff, and Conductor Leopold Stokowski since I'm a fan of all three.

Although I am more into art than photography I find that Steichen was a 20th century giant of a photographer, and an artist, as such, his own right. He is well-known for his portraits of famous people, his wartime work in both of the World Wars, his contributions to the Family of Man exhibits, his creative cityscapes of New York, and his innovative advertising work. He was very big for most of the 20th century and even did some good work in the 1890's. Some of his work you have probably seen before, and you'll notice this as you go through his book.

Enormously gifted and innovative, he seemed to care little about anything but his work. He considered himself the surrogate son of August Rodin, the scupture of The Thinker, who was an impossible man who did improbably great work. Too much of Rodin seemed to rub off on him, but the greatness of Steichen's work can't be denied. It's important to separate the artist from his art. I did, and I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Extremely Well Reproduced Images and Personal Insights.......2000-11-30

This book belongs in the home of everyone who loves great photography.

" . . . [S]eeing led to understanding and understanding could transform suspicion, hatred and violence into tolerance, peace and love." This was Steichen's vision for his oeuvre, as reported by his widow, Joanna, in this rewarding retrospective and series of biographical essays. In keeping with that vision, Ms. Steichen has developed this wonderful volume in the following way: "I want the reader to have optimal opportunity to experience the images simply as images." In that, she was remarkably successful. She graciously acknowledges the aid of George Tice, the last of those who printed for Steichen, in preparing the volume.

Each page is gorgeously reproduced in superb size, on great paper, and with thoughtful care concerning the sharpness, lack of sharpness, or contrast required to express Steichen's intent for each image.

Before going further, let me mention that Steichen's work does include female nudity. There are few of these images, and only one is potentially challenging for the viewer. If such things bother you, skip that section of the book called "the Body" or skip this volume.

If you are not familiar with Steichen's personal life, you should know that he and his wife first met when he was 80 and she was 28, when Carl Sandburg, Steichen's brother-in-law, introduced them. They soon fell in love and married. Steichen then drafted her to be his personal assistant, and she became very familiar with his work and collaborators. When he died, he left his negatives to her for use and disposition, and directed that she also decide who was to get his prints. From seeing the care in selecting images and the quality of their reproduction in this volume, he chose well in leaving his artistic legacy to her.

The intent of her selection process was to provide an overview of his life's work, so you get a combination of the famous and the seldom-seen here. These are grouped around themes as follows: Next of Kin (his family); of Woods and Water (landscapes), Reverie (foggy romantic images); Powerful People; Challenging Women; Style; the Body; Artists; Early Color Process; Writers; on the Road; Masters of Music; New York City; Glamour; Scale and Symbol; Improvisation; Forces of Nature; On Stage; and Flowers.

The essays about these sections contain personal anecdotes that are more revealing about his life than his work. But for those who do not know his technique, there is an overview to explain his interests and methods. For example, the connections to painting, abstraction, and setting a mood are well established. The many luminescent images against a dark background, shaded by fuzziness, are explained by his experience with mist on the lens later aided by deliberate use of saliva and indirect lighting.

My favorites of the images here include:

With Studio Camera (self-portrait), 1917

With Photographic Paraphernalia (self-portrait), 1929

Theodore Roosevelt, The White House, 1908

Walter Winchell, New York, 1929

The Cat -- Gloria Swanson, 1924

Mary Steichen, 1917

Shoes, 1927

Douglass Lighters, 1928

Thumbtacks, 1926-1927

Nude Torso, c. 1934

Dana's Hands and Grasses, Long Island, New York, 1923

The First Cast of Brancusi's "Bird in Space", c. 1925

Carl Sandburg, Umpawaug Farm, 1939

Irving Berlin, 1932

George Gershin, 1927

Martha Graham (4), New York, 1931

Noel Coward, New York, 1932

Leslie Howard, 1933

Joan Crawford, 1932

Spiral Shell, France, c. 1921

Ed Wynn, New York, 1930

Katherine Hepburn, 1933

Having seen all of these images, I came away most impressed with those rare occasions when personal character, abstraction, and shadows could be combined into the same image. The results are simply breathtaking.

Steichen has significance in three ways for the modern viewer. He pioneered in making photography an "art" rather than pure representation. These pioneering efforts established many of the major methods used by photographers since. Second, he was an important curator of photography, and he championed many careers. Third, he was remarkably talented in capturing personality, much like the great portrait painters.

The essays add a fourth dimension to Steichen that is well worth our attention. What is it like to be an acknowledged genius in your field? What are the challenges? What are the pitfalls?

"He was full of contradictions." "Meeting the daily needs of individuals was not his concern." "His capacity for connecting truly and intensely operated on a grander scale." In this way, Steichen reminds one of many great people who withdraw into their work. Compared to Einstein, his withdrawal was not nearly as complete. Compared to Picasso, he did not actually torment his family deliberately. But, it is clear that his career came before all else.

"Steichen had a conscience and room for compasssion, but he also had an urgent, lifelong mandate for accomplishment." He comes across as the archetype of the modern self-absorbed striver, and his example bears witnessing. After a rough session in which the author suffered tough treatment from her husband, friends often took her aside to reassure her that everyone eventually found their lives enriched by knowing Steichen. Ms. Steichen echoes that advice in this volume also. So ultimately, the picture you get is of someone where the heart ultimately overcame the obsession with work and self-expression, but not without creating pain for others along the way.

After you finish enjoying this delightful group of great images, I suggest that you think about your own life. Where may you have an obsession that causes pain to those around you? How can you change that approach to create more joy and happiness instead, for others and for yourself? If you are not sure, perhaps the outstanding book, Relationship Rescue, and The Relationship Rescue Workbook can help you.

Accomplish with all your heart!

For Photography Lovers & Memoir Readers Everywhere!.......2000-11-13

This beautifully printed book is obviously a labor of love on all sides. With text by the widow of Edward Steichen, the book is unique in that it weaves together the extraordinary photographs of this great American master with an intriguing story which is more memoir than dull academic treatise. While Edward Steichen's beautifully reproduced photographs provide a feast for the eyes, Joanna Steichen tells his story and looks at their life together honestly, bringing to her text the heart and soul of a true writer. She discusses the groupings of photographs from her own experiences as the young wife of a much older, great man, and she shares her memories of their sometimes difficult marriage. Even more extraordinary is that all of this is so accessible to a general audience, which is generally not the case with most art books. What this reviewer finds particularly interesting is the way the book is laid out -- in chapters with titles like "Of Woods and Water," "Forces of Nature," and "Challenging Women," instead of by dull academic chronology or by technical photographic process. In sum, this is really two books -- an art book and a memoir -- in one, and although this may confuse professional reviewers in the national press it should not dissuade readers. Put it on your holiday list if you want to give a very special gift to a very special person. For photographers, of course, the book is a "must buy." Edward Steichen was a true American original who lived a long and exciting life to the fullest, and was a pioneer in his field. "Steichen's Legacy" will interest almost everyone.

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Fine Work by a Great Master of Photography
Steichen; Early Master

Edward Steichen : The Early Years
Joel Smith
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set - Volume I & II: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs
Steichen's Legacy
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Atget
Paul Strand (Aperture Masters of Photography)

ASIN: 0691048738

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.

Customer Reviews:

Fine Work by a Great Master of Photography.......2007-03-05

While he may be better know for his later work, Edward Steichen was one of the greatest Pictorialists around during his early years. This book contains an excellent selection of his early work. If you like this period in photography, it's one of the best books you can buy. The work is breathtaking.

Steichen; Early Master.......2000-05-23

This is an excellent photography book. It highlights the early career of this true master of the medium. Steichen's work rivals his contemporaries Steiglitz and Strand.A must have for any serious collector of photography monographs.

Edward Steichen: Collection Of The Royal Photographic Society

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For Quality Alone, a Nice Edition...

Edward Steichen: Collection Of The Royal Photographic Society

Manufacturer: Charta
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Museums & Collections | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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Steichen's Legacy

ASIN: 8881581051
Release Date: 1997-02-02

Book Description

The photographs in this volume were selected from the collection of the prestigious Royal Photographic Society in Bath, England, home to 80 Steichen photographs. Steichen's relationship with the RPS was turbulent, as the innovative photographer repeatedly challenged the conservative Society. In 1903, Steichen took aim at the formulaic photographs favored by the Society, writing: "Some day there may be invented a machine that needs but to be wound up and sent roaming o'er hill and dale, through fields and meadows, by babbling brooks and shady woods - in short, a machine that will discriminatingly select its subject and by means of a skilful arrangement of springs and screws, compose its motif, expose the plate, develop, print and even mount and frame the result of its excursion, so that there will remain nothing for us to do but to send it to the Royal Photographic Society's exhibition and gratefully receive the Royal Medal."

Customer Reviews:

For Quality Alone, a Nice Edition..........2003-02-09

This book is printed on high quality paper, but be careful as it is a small soft-cover book with little less than 50 pages to it. And if you're already familiar with Stiechen's work, many of the photos will be very familiar to you. But, for it's price it's a nice addition to an avid collector of photography or Stiechen related photography.

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A Life in Photography Edward Steichen
Edward Steichen
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

The Photographer's Eye

ASIN: B000J40SP4

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Highly Recommended
A novel novel
Beautiful but Aloof
Great Story, Beautifully Told
Highly Recommended

The Last Summer of the World: A Novel
Emily Mitchell
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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Run

ASIN: 0393064875

Book Description

An absorbing debut novel about the photograher Edward Steichen's wartime return to France and his reckoning with his painful past.

In the summer of 1918, with the Germans threatening Paris, Edward Steichen arrives in France to photograph the war for the American army. France is full of poignant memories: his early artistic successes, his marriage, the births of his two daughters. But as he takes up his first command, he learns that his wife Clara has filed suit against her friend, the painter Marion Beckett, charging that she was Steichen's lover in the summer before the war.

Flying over the fields of France, Steichen struggles to understand what went wrong in his seemingly idyllic life. His search for answers takes him into his own complex past, toward a painful self-understanding and the discovery of new ways of seeing the world.

Told with the elegance of Michael Cunningham's The Hours and the historical rendering of Colm Tóibín's The Master, The Last Summer of the World captures the life and heart of a great photographer and of a world beset by war.

Customer Reviews:

Highly Recommended.......2007-08-28

This is one of the best novels I've read in a long time. I really admired the writing itself---beautiful and restrained and elegant---and how the era seemed so deeply researched but came off as authentic and lived-in. I was completely absorbed by it and look forward to whatever Mitchell writes next.

A novel novel.......2007-08-23

This first novel by a young author is a fascinating use of historical and biographical material, well blended with imagination, to create a novel about an important period in the life of the great photographer, Edward Steichen. I found the analysis of artistic temperament, and of emotions, extremely well done, with mature insight. I also "enjoyed" the evocation of World War I in France.

Beautiful but Aloof.......2007-08-23

Emily Mitchell writes beautifully and in this historical novel, she has chosen a fascinating subject: Edward Steichen's life and art, set against the background of a world war and the collapse of his marriage. I didn't know much about Steichen before reading this book and I found his life (at least in the fictionalized version) to be very interesting. Yet for most of "The Last Summer of the World" I felt as if we were seeing him, and people who surround him, from a distance, instead of getting into the skin of any of the characters. It's a shame, because it made emotionally connecting with the story, and with the people in it, difficult, if not impossible. The exception is the end, which is moving and very powerful (and the reason I'm giving this novel four stars). I wish the rest of the book had been too.

Great Story, Beautifully Told.......2007-07-29

Thanks to Emily Mitchell for giving us one of those extraordinary novels that remain in the mind, evoking strong feelings and provoking new thoughts long after one turns the last page. Mitchell's subtle, unmannered, and decisive prose is a non-stop pleasure to read. Her story steadily gains momentum until, at the end, one feels the wind whistling past one's ears and hangs on for dear life. Most impressive, perhaps, is the refusal of this novel to play to type. TLSW is not a love story set against the "background" of war but a meditation on love and war that involves us in the interplay of spontaneous sentiments and a powerful (indeed, hyperactive) social environment. Similarly, despite the author's obvious sympathy for Clara Steichen's plight in a male-dominated culture, the book escapes categorization as either a feminist or implicitly gendered novel. Mitchell's empathetic imagination permits us to enter so deeply into the inner lives of both Edward and Clara that "taking sides" between them finally seeems reductionist and irrelevant. Glamorous, creative, confused, yearning for personal meaning and social peace, they were who they were, and Emily Mitchell has made them live again for us.

Highly Recommended.......2007-07-19

I can see why this debut novel has gotten so many rave reviews. This is the real thing: elegant, lyrical writing combined with a great American story about the pioneering photographer Edward Steichen, his troubled relationship with his first wife, and his experiences flying missions in France during the First World War with the U.S. Air Force. I can think of many different audiences that would enjoy this book, especially readers who like historical fiction, readers interested in the lives of great early twentieth century artists, and readers with an interest in the history of photography.

Real Fantasies: Edward Steichen's Advertising Photography

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Real Fantasies: Edward Steichen's Advertising Photography
Patricia Johnston
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520227077

Book Description

During the 1920s and 1930s, Edward Steichen was the most successful photographer in the advertising industry. Although much has been said about Steichen's fine-art photography, his commercial work--which appeared regularly in Vanity Fair, Vogue, Ladies Home Journal, and almost every other popular magazine published in the United States--has not received the attention it deserves.
At a time when photography was just beginning to replace drawings as the favored medium for advertising, Steichen helped transform the producers of such products as Welch's grape juice and Jergens lotion from small family businesses to national household names. In this book, Patricia Johnston uses Steichen's work as a case study of the history of advertising and the American economy between the wars. She traces the development of Steichen's work from an early naturalistic style through increasingly calculated attempts to construct consumer fantasies. By the 1930s, alluring images of romance and class, developed in collaboration with agency staff and packaged in overtly manipulative and persuasive photographs, became Steichen's stock-in-trade. He was most frequently chosen by agencies for products targeted toward women: his images depicted vivacious singles, earnest new mothers, and other stereotypically female life stages that reveal a great deal about the industry's perceptions of and pitches to this particular audience.
Johnston presents an intriguing inside view of advertising agencies, drawing on an array of internal documents to reconstruct the team process that involved clients, art directors, account executives, copywriters, and photographers. Her book is a telling chronicle of the role of mass media imagery in reflecting, shaping, and challenging social values in American culture.

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Memorable Life Photographs
Edward, Ed. Steichen
Manufacturer: MOMA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000J2QW7E

Family Of Man 1955-2001: A Reappraisal Of The Photo Exhibition By Edward Steichen Humanism And Postmodernism

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Family Of Man 1955-2001: A Reappraisal Of The Photo Exhibition By Edward Steichen Humanism And Postmodernism

Manufacturer: Jonas Verlag
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3894453281

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