Although 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. In New York, 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.