While Edward Steichen is justifiably remembered as one of thepioneers of fashion photography, and a great innovator of the medium morebroadly, it is the quality and striking composition of his images that findspurchase in our mind. Unlike many photographers, who use the medium to‘capture’ moments of genius, divine accident or punctum, Steichen comes fromthe opposite angle. Each photograph is carefully composed, carefully lit,carefully considered, to say nothing of his impeccable development process. Owingat least in part to his training in painting and lithography, Steichen broughtan almost classicist sensibility to photography, creating a strong and specificstrain of modernism to the still-new medium. Steichen’s models look statuesqueand unattainable in their perfection, complicating the sensualist or surrealistreadings so often associated with the eroticism of the day. Steichen’s take oneroticism, if we can call it that, is at least as enthralled in compositionaland surface finery as it is in the human form. Owing in part to his innovationof the fashion shoot (or to be more specific, taking the fashion shoot takenoutside of the fashion houses and into different settings, giving the images asense of heighted, theatrical drama), and its sumptuous tonality, Steichen’swork remains timeless, carved in photographic granite.

-Jonathan McBurnie