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Edward Steichen
(1876-1973)
SELF PORTRAIT, MILWAUKEE
warm-toned platinum print with black border, numbered in an unidentified hand in pencil on the reverse, matted, 1898
7 1/2 by 3 5/8 in. 19.1 by 9.2 cm.
Provenance
Gift of Sandro Mayer, 1974; originally in the collection of Louis Mayer (see Lot 105)
Exhibited
Inaugural installation of the new photography collection galleries, May 1984
Self-Portrait: The Photographer's Persona, 1840-1985, November 1985 - January 1986
Literature
Steichen: The Master Prints, pl. 1
Steichen: A Life in Photography, pl. 3
Edward Steichen: The Early Years, frontispiece
Steichen's Legacy, pl. 3
Naef, The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz, fig. 42 and cat. no. 450
Roberts, Photo Historica: Rare Images from the Collection of the Royal Photographic Society, p. 52
The young Steichen began photographing in 1895 with a camera that he purchased himself, learning technique from whatever manuals he could find. As an apprentice graphic designer at Milwaukee's American Fine Art Company, Steichen used his photographs as the basis for his advertising designs. He supplemented his income by making snapshot portraits, eventually setting up his own small commercial studio. As his photo-based designs gained popularity, and he developed a reputation for his portraits, Steichen established himself, in his early twenties, as the foremost commercial photographer in Milwaukee.
Steichen's involvement in photography extended beyond its commercial applications. Intensely interested in art, he immersed himself in the books available at the public library. There he discovered the work of Whistler and Monet, and began to incorporate their compositional ideas into his photographs and paintings. He and a group of artist friends founded the Milwaukee Art Student's League, which provided a forum for young artists to show and talk about their work. He was also a dedicated reader of Alfred Stieglitz's journal, Camera Notes. Through its photogravure reproductions of photographs by Stieglitz, F. Holland Day, Gertrude Kasebier, Robert Demachy, and others, Steichen was exposed to work that was at the very forefront of photography. Within its covers he also encountered essays on the current debate of photography's status as a fine art, and he continued these debates with his growing circle of artist friends, including Louis Mayer, the original owner of the print offered here. Mayer, a Socialist, went on to study in Germany, eventually returning to Milwaukee where he enjoyed a successful career as a regional artist.
In 1900, Steichen determined to go to Europe with fellow Art Student League member Carl Bjorncrantz. Steichen had met Clarence White when the young photographer submitted a group of images to the Chicago salon. White, impressed by Steichen's work, suggested that he visit Stieglitz when he passed through New York. During this first meeting Stieglitz purchased three photographs from Steichen, a print of Self Portrait, Milwaukee, among them. Stieglitz reproduced the image as a halftone in Camera Notes 4, No. 1 (January 1901), and
F. Holland Day included it in his New American School exhibition in London in 1900.
Steichen's masterful composition in Self Portrait, Milwaukee, with its woodcut-like contrasts and clever minimalism, is surprising when compared to his other photographs of the period. In these landscapes and portraits, he tended to utilize the impressionistic, atmospheric effects typical of Pictorialist photography. Self Portrait, Milwaukee, produced at the very start of Steichen's career, shows the young photographer at his most ingenious, and it functions not only as a self portrait, but also as a symbol for Steichen's formidable creative powers.
At the time of this writing, four other prints of this image have been located, all in platinum: a second print in The Museum of Modern Art, a gift of the photographer; the print in the Stieglitz Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; a print in the Royal Photographic Society, England; and a print in a private collection.