page_title: Edward Steichen
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Edward Steichen / Early life
context_page_description: Edward Jean Steichen was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator.
  Widely renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography, his were the photographs that most frequently appeared in Alfred Stieglitz's groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its publication from 1903 to 1917 - with Stieglitz hailing him as “the greatest photographer".
  Steichen laid claim to his photos of gowns for the magazine Art et Décoration in 1911, being the first modern fashion photographs ever published. From 1923 to 1938, Steichen was a photographer for the Condé Nast magazines Vogue and Vanity Fair, while also working for many advertising agencies, including J. Walter Thompson. During these years, Steichen was regarded as the best known and highest paid photographer in the world. In 1944, he directed the war documentary The Fighting Lady, which won the 1945 Academy Award for Best Documentary.
  From 1947 to 1961, Steichen served as Director of the Department of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art. While there, he curated and assembled exhibits including The Family of Man, which was seen by nine million people.
context_section_description: Steichen was born Éduard Jean Steichen in Bivange, Luxembourg, the son of Jean-Pierre and Marie Kemp Steichen. Jean-Pierre Steichen first immigrated to the United States in 1880. Marie Steichen brought the infant Edward along, once Jean-Pierre had settled in Hancock in Michigan's Upper Peninsula copper country. Éduard's sister Lilian Steichen was born in Hancock, MI. She later married poet Carl Sandburg. The family, with the addition of Lilian, moved to Milwaukee in 1889, when Éduard was 10.
  In 1894, at fifteen, Steichen began attending Pio Nono College, a Catholic boys' high school, where his artistic talents were first noticed; his drawings in particular were said to show promise. He quit high school to begin a four-year lithography apprenticeship with the American Fine Art Company of Milwaukee. After hours, he would sketch and draw, and he began to teach himself painting. Having discovered a camera shop near his work, he visited frequently until he persuaded himself to buy his first camera, a secondhand Kodak box "detective" camera, in 1895. Steichen and his friends who were also interested in drawing and photography pooled together their funds, rented a small room in a Milwaukee, WI office building, and began calling themselves the Milwaukee Art Students League. The group also hired Richard Lorenz and Robert Schade for occasional lectures.
  Steichen became a U.S. citizen in 1900 and signed the naturalization papers as Edward J. Steichen; however, he continued to use his birth name of Éduard until after the First World War.
  Steichen married Clara Smith in 1903. They had two daughters, Mary and Kate. In 1914, Clara accused her husband of having an affair with artist Marion H. Beckett, who was staying with them in France. The Steichens left France just ahead of invading German troops. In 1915, Clara Steichen returned to France with her daughter Kate, staying in their house in the Marne in spite of the war. Steichen returned to France with the Photography Division of the American Army Signal Corps in 1917, whereupon Clara returned to the United States. In 1919, Clara Steichen sued Marion Beckett for having an affair with her husband, but was unable to prove her claims. Clara and Edward Steichen eventually divorced in 1922. Steichen married Dana Desboro Glover in 1923. She died of leukemia in 1957. In 1960, aged 80, Steichen married 27-year-old Joanna Taub and remained married to her until his death, two days before his 94th birthday. Joanna Steichen died on July 24, 2010, in Montauk, New York, aged 77.
caption: Henri Matisse and La Serpentine, fall 1909, Issy-les-Moulineaux, photograph by Edward Steichen
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