STEICHEN EDWARD (1879 1973) Bergdorf Goodman models (one is

Sale 2208 - Lot 79

Price Realized: $ 10,200

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 9,000 - $ 12,000

STEICHEN, EDWARD (1879-1973)
Bergdorf-Goodman models (one is Marion Morehouse) dressed in Vionnet. Silver print, 9 1/2x7 1/2 inches (24.1x19.1 cm.), on a later mount, with numeric notations and "Vogue" in the negative. 1930

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Acquired from agent (Michael Nichol) in 1993 representing a Midwest collector.
The Photograph and the American Dream 1840-1940, 100.

Edward Steichen: A Life in Photography, 107 (uncropped).

Edward Steichen was considered "The greatest living portrait photographer" of the 1920s-30s. Condé Nast hired Steichen as his chief photographer for Vanity Fair, and Vogue, where he produced fashion imagery. He replaced Baron de Meyer, who had recently resigned to take a position with a rival publication, Harper's Bazaar. Steichen was paid the then unprecedented salary of $35,000 a year and soon become as sought after as those he photographed.

Steichen's photographs elevated his models to an iconic status. His favorite model was the one depicted here, Marion Morehouse (who later married the poet E. E. Cummings). He wrote, "The greatest fashion model I ever photographed was Marion Morehouse. Miss Morehouse was no more interested in fashion as fashion than I was. But when she put on the clothes that were to be photographed, she transformed herself into a woman who really would wear that gown or that riding habit or whatever the outfit was." His highly stylized and glamorous approach inevitably turned a few of his peers into harsh critics. Walker Evans described Steichen's work as "technical impressiveness and spiritual non-existence," while Ansel Adams declared him the "anti-Christ of photography." However, Steichen failed to see a difference between his more artistically refined images and his commercial work. He has influenced contemporary successors ranging from Robert Mapplethorpe to Richard Avedon and Bruce Weber.