Edward Steichen

Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. During the 1920s and 1930s, 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.

Steichen was the most frequently featured photographer in Alfred Stieglitz' groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its run from 1903 to 1917. Together Stieglitz and Steichen opened the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, which eventually became known as 291 after its address.

His photos of gowns for the magazine Art et Décoration in 1911 are regarded as 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. Steichen's 1928 photo of actress Greta Garbo is recognized as one of the definitive portraits of Garbo.

During World War II, Steichen served as Director of the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit.

From 1947 to 1961, Steichen served as Director of the Department of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art. While at MoMA, he curated and assembled the exhibit The Family of Man, which was seen by nine million people. The vast exhibit consisted of over 500 photos that depicted life, love and death in 68 countries.

Steichen purchased a farm that he called Umpawaug in 1928, just outside West Redding, Connecticut. Steichen lived there until his death on 25 March 1973, two days before his 94th birthday.

In February 2006, a print of Steichen's early pictorialist photograph, The Pond—Moonlight (1904), sold for what was then the highest price ever paid for a photograph at auction, U.S. $2.9 million.