Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, who is widely Famous as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography.
Credited afterward transforming photography into an art form, Steichen’s photographs were the ones that most frequently appeared in Alfred Stieglitz’s groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its broadcast from 1903 to 1917, with Stieglitz hailing him as “the greatest photographer that ever lived”.
A voyager of fashion photography, Steichen laid allegation to his photos of gowns for the magazine Art et Décoration in 1911, being the first enlightened fashion photographs ever published. From 1923 to 1938, Steichen served as chief photographer for the Condé Nast magazines Vogue and Vanity Fair, while also committed for many advertising agencies, including J. Walter Thompson. During these years, Steichen was regarded as the best known and highest paid photographer in the world.
After the United States’ entry into World War II, Steichen was invited by the United States Navy to advance as Director of the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit. In 1944, he directed the stroke documentary The Fighting Lady, which won the 1945 Academy Award for Best Documentary.
From 1947 to 1961, Steichen served as Director of the Department of Photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. While there, he curated and assembled exhibits including The Family of Man, which was seen by nine million people. In 2003, the Family of Man photographic growth was supplementary to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in reply of its historical value.
In February 2006, a print of Steichen’s in advance pictorialist photograph, The Pond—Moonlight (1904), sold for US$2.9 million—at the time, the highest price ever paid for a photograph at auction.
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