Edward Steichen
Trees, Long Island

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Artist Edward Steichen American, born Luxembourg, 1879–1973

CultureAmerican

Titles

Trees, Long Island

Date1904, printed 1905

PlaceLong Island, New York, United States

MediumCarbon print

DimensionsImage: 13 3/8 × 13 9/16 in. (34 × 34.4 cm)
Sheet: 17 3/8 × 14 1/16 in. (44.1 × 35.7 cm)
Mount: 17 3/4 × 14 5/8 in. (45.1 × 37.1 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the Long Endowment for American Art and the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation

Object number86.1

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionAlthough better known for the celebrity portraits that he made as the chief photographer for Condé Nast’s Vogue and Vanity Fair beginning in 1923, Edward Steichen initially rose to stardom in the first years of the 20th century. After a brief sojourn in Paris, during which he learned the gum bichromate process and other painterly techniques of the French Pictorialist photographers, Steichen settled in New York in 1902. There, as a protégé and collaborator of the influential photographer, publisher, and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz, Steichen was heralded as the exemplar of a new type of photographic artist. Rejecting the style of both professional photographers and amateur “Kodak-ers,” Steichen demonstrated in works such as Trees, Long Island that photographs could rival paintings in their scale, individuality, and expressiveness.
Provenance[Howard Greenberg, Irvington, New York]; purchased by MFAH, 1986.
Exhibition History"Seeing the Forest Through the Trees," Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, August 17–October 10, 1993.

"A Love Affair with Pictures: 25 Years of Collecting Photographs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, October 14–December 30, 2001.

"Edward Steichen: Lives in Photography," Musée Jeu de paume, Paris, October 8–December 30, 2007; Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland, January 18–March 30, 2008; Palazzo Magnani, Reggio Emilia, Italy, April 17–June 8, 2008; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, June 24–September 22, 2008.

“History of Photography I: Selections from the Museum's Collection,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, November 1, 2014–February 22, 2015.

Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Signed on sheet recto: STEICHEN

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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