While Steichen's palette recalls Whistler's Nocturne paintings and the foreground branch echoes those often found in the Japanese prints that were much in vogue in turn-of-the-century Paris, his subject is distinctly modern and American. The newly completed, twenty-two-story skyscraper soars so high above Madison Square in New York that it could not be contained within the photographer's frame. Crown jewels in the Museum's photography collection, Steichen's three variant printings of The Flatiron, each in a different tonality, evoke successive moments of twilight and forcefully assert that photography can rival painting in scale, color, individuality, and expressiveness.
Inscription: Inscribed in pencil on mount, verso C: "Steichen [underlined] // Platinum [underlined]"; "Steichen, Eduard J // The Flat Iron // Platinum Gum// (Blue Print) // 'About the best print of subject' (AS) // Property of Alfred Stieglitz value $125"; numbers inscribed in pencil, verso BC: “35 [circled]; 38 [underlined]; 18A”
Edward Steichen; Alfred Stieglitz
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Thirty Photographers: A Selection from the Museum's Collection," April 12–June 1, 1969.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Painterly Photograph," January 9–February 28, 1973.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz," May 18–July 16, 1978.
Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. "1900," March 14, 2000–June 26, 2000.
Whitney Museum of American Art. "Edward Steichen," October 5, 2000–February 4, 2001.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand," November 8, 2010–April 10, 2011.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe," October 13, 2011–January 2, 2012.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Making The Met, 1870–2020," August 29, 2020–January 3, 2021.
Stieglitz, Alfred, ed. Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly 14 (April 1906).
Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (Spring 1978). no. 29, p. 36.
Naef, Weston J. The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz: Fifty Pioneers of Modern Photography. 1st ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978. no. 480.
Smith, Joel. Edward Steichen: The Early Years. Princeton: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999. pl. 18.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012. p. 442.
Orenstein, Nadine M., Jeff L. Rosenheim, and Stephen C. Pinson. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin: A Centennial Album: Drawings, Prints, and Photographs 74, no. 3 (Winter 2017). p. 8.
Edward J. Steichen (American (born Luxembourg), Bivange 1879–1973 West Redding, Connecticut)
1930
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