About This Artwork

Edward Steichen
American, born Luxembourg, 1879–1973

Self-Portrait with Camera, c. 1917

Platinum print
25 x 19.8 cm (image); 19 7/8 x 15 7/8 in. (paper)
Restricted gifts of Brenda and Earl Shapiro and the Smart Family Foundation; Laura T. Magnuson Acquisition, Comer Foundation, The Mary and Leigh Block Endowment funds; restricted gifts of Sidney and Sondra Berman Epstein, Karen and Jim Frank, Marian Pawlick; Ethel T. Scarborough, Hugh Leander and Mary Trumbull Adams Memorial Endowment, Betty Bell Spooner funds; restricted gifts of Vicki and Thomas Horwich, Robin and Sandy Stuart; Samuel A. Marx Purchase Fund for Major Acquisitions, S. DeWitt Clough, Photographic Society, Irving and June Seaman Endowment, Morris L. Parker funds, 2008.243

Photography
Not on Display

Edward Steichen negotiated many spaces of display over the course of his career: from his early training as a painter and his involvement in the Photo-Secession, an amateur group led by Alfred Stieglitz; to his service as a military photographer, and then a studio photographer for Condé Nast magazines; and later, to his curatorial endeavors at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. This self-portrait, taken around 1917, presents the artist’s frank assessment of himself at a pivotal moment in his career. Distancing himself from the soft-focus sentimentality of the Photo-Secession, Steichen broke with his mentor, Alfred Stieglitz (who had earlier abandoned that group), and stopped painting. Responding in 1915 to a questionnaire from Stieglitz, Steichen declared his wish that photography galleries like Stieglitz’s remain receptive to new elements, such as the crisp and straightforward aesthetic advanced in this self-portrait.