that Bracusi’s metal sculpture,Bird in Space(of
which he had taken a photograph in 1925, entitled
The First Cast of Brancusi’s Bird in Space) was a
bona fide work of art. This precedent-setting case
involved U.S. Customs classifying the artwork within
the category of kitchen utensils and hospital sup-
plies, thus subjecting it to tariffs when brought into
the country for exhibition. Steichen, with others, tes-
tified in court against the Customs Service’s claims
that the work had no aesthetic value and was not
in fact a bird, with the decision ultimately in Bran-
cusi’s favor.
In 1929, Steichen’s populist instincts led him to
collaborate with renowned poet Carl Sandberg
(incidentally his brother-in-law) on a lavish book
entitledSteichen: The Photographer.In this mono-
graph, Steichen makes little distinction between the
refined taste preferred by the elites and that of the
common man; and, rather than having artistic pre-
tensions, photography’s value is shown as an
important component of democracy. This project
also led to a division between Steichen and Stieglitz
that was repaired only late in their lives. The next
year, further exploring popular outlets for pho-
tography, he collaborated with his daughter Mary
in the realization ofThe First Picture Book: Every-
day Things for Babies, which featured photographs
of a teddy bears, toys, and other humble subjects.
The years from the mid-1930s to the beginning of
World War II in 1945 saw Steichen moving further
away from the avant-garde and experimental circles
in which he had emerged in favor of a more human-
ist approach. He took a more socially active stance,
working on photomurals for large public projects
and venues such as the 1933–1934 Century of Pro-
gressFairinChicago.HeclosedhisstudioinNew
York and traveled in Mexico in 1938, inspired by the
work of the social documentarians of the Farm
Security Administration. During World War II,
even though he was well into his sixties, Steichen
volunteered for service and managed the Naval
Aviation Photographic Unit, commanding all naval
combat photography. Steichen also organized two
important wartime exhibitions for MoMA:Road to
Victory(1942) andPower in the Pacific(1945), using
material he had access to through his commission
that showed the U.S. operations in the Pacific thea-
ter. In 1944, he made a foray into filmmaking, direct-
ingThe Fighting Lady, produced by the U.S. Navy.
After the war, Steichen cemented his long asso-
ciation with MoMA when he became director of
the photographic department in 1947. He contin-
ued his humanist vision for photography, which
reaches its apotheosis in the 1955 traveling exhibi-
tionThe Family of Man.With its worldwide tour,
including stops in Germany, Australia, South Af-
rica, France, Japan, and the Soviet Union, the
show was a huge success, attracting more than 9
million visitors. Selected from millions of photo-
graphs, the exhibition was composed of 503 pic-
tures by 273 authors representing 68 countries.
Photographs were grouped by 37 themes like love,
child-bearing, family, education, children, war, and
peace. Steichen’s goal in selecting and compiling
these images was to represent ‘‘daily relationships’’
and express the ‘‘flaming creative forces of love and
truth and the corrosive evil inherent in the lie’’ (The
Family of Man, 1955).
After becoming more active as a curator, writer,
and arts administrator, Steichen’s photographic
production fell off. But in 1955 he returned to an
early love, color photography. He focused on a
study of a shad-blow tree that stood on the grounds
of his Connecticut home. He took 35 mm Koda-
chrome pictures of the tree under many lighting
conditions, at different angles, times of the day,
and during the different seasons. With this last
photographic series, Steichen established a connec-
tion between his unique motif and the human life,
from birth to death. In 1957, his second wife died,
and Steichen suffered a stroke. Recovering, in
1960, he married Joanna Taub. In 1962, Steichen
resigned from his curator of museum job and
devoted his time to his biography, published one
year later under the title of Steichen, A Life in
Photography. The year 1964 saw the opening of
the Edward Steichen Photography Center at the
Museum of Modern Art. In 1973, Steichen died at
the age of 94.
ThomasCyrilSeealso:Aerial Photography; Conde ́Nast; Fashion
Photography; History of Photography: Twentieth-
Century Pioneers; Museum of Modern Art; Photo-
Secession; Photo-Secessionist; Pictorialism; Stie-
gliz, Alfred; Surrealism; White, ClarenceBiography
Born Eduard Jean Steichen 27 March 1879 in Luxembourg;
immigrated with his family to U.S. in 1881, first in Han-
cock, Michigan, then Milwaukee. Began a four-year
lithography apprenticeship at Milwaukee’s American
Fine Art Company, 1894. Worked under Richard Lor-
enz and Robert Schode at the Milwaukee Art Students
League, 1894–1898. Self-taught in photography, begins
to photograph in 1896. Photographs accepted to Second
Salon of Philadelphia, 1899. Moved to New York City;
became a naturalized American citizen, 1900. Traveled
to Paris where he photographed Rodin’s sculptures,- With Stieglitz opened the Little Galleries of the
Photo-Secession at 291 Fifth Avenue in New York,
STEICHEN, EDWARD