About this artwork
Edward Steichen, a painter as well as a photographer, was an early adherent of Pictorialism, which promoted photography as a fine art and emphasized handcraft in printing. A protégé of the photographer Alfred Stieglitz, he designed the cover and layout of Stieglitz’s journal Camera Work, a publication championing the medium’s artistic potential. Steichen excelled at the gum bichromate process, which allowed artists to layer different colors and manipulate the emulsion, while still wet, in a painterly fashion; here, he was able to enhance highlights by removing pigment with a brush. As he wrote in the first issue of Camera Work, “every photograph is a fake from start to finish, a purely impersonal, unmanipulated photograph being practically impossible.”
For more on Edward Steichen’s work in the Art Institute’s collection visit the website: Edward Steichen’s World War I Years.
For more on the Alfred Stieglitz collection at the Art Institute, along with in-depth object information, please visit the website: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Photography and Media
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Artist
- Edward Steichen
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Title
- Midnight Lake George
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Place
- United States (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- Made 1904
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Medium
- Gum bichromate and cyanotype over platinum print
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Inscriptions
- Signed and inscribed recto, on image, lower left, in green pencil [?]: "STEICHEN / MDCCCCIV"; inscribed verso, on second mount, upper left, in graphite: "Midnight Lake George / by / Steichen"
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Dimensions
- Image/paper/first mount/second mount: 39.2 × 50.6 cm (15 7/16 × 19 15/16 in.)
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Credit Line
- Alfred Stieglitz Collection
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Reference Number
- 1949.829
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Copyright
- © 2018 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
