STEICHEN, Edward [Yousuf Karsh; Estrellita Karsh].
A Life in Photography.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc. , 1963.
$2,000.00
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Item Number: RRB-151771
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First Edition of A Life in Photography; Lengthily Inscribed by Edward Steichen to Celebrated Portrait Photographer Yousuf Karsh
First edition of this autobiography of Edward Steichen, documenting his pioneering career as one of the 20th century's most influential photographers. Square quarto, original publisher's cloth with gilt titles to the spine and front panel, pictorial endpapers, illustrated with 249 black-and-white plates, including still lifes, landscapes, and portraits. Association copy, inscribed by Edward Steichen on the title page to celebrated portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh and his wife Estrellita, "To Yousuf & Estrellita Karsh With rememberings of a fine day of work and play. With affection & devotion Joanna & Edward Steichen." The recipient, Yousuf Karsh, is recognized as one of the leading photographers of the twentieth century. Arriving in Canada in 1924 as an Armenian refugee, Karsh eventually settled in Ottawa. Over six decades, he mastered the art of portraiture and created a unique chronicle of his time through images of celebrated legends. Some of his most notable subjects include Winston Churchill, Audrey Hepburn, Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Ernest Hemingway, among others. A celebrity in his own right, he was an elegant and charming public figure, captivating audiences with compelling stories told in images and words. Karsh sought to capture, as he put it, the “elusive moment of truth,” revealing the essential nature of his subjects as reflected in their eyes, hands, and attitudes. From the collection of Yousuf Karsh with his estate label to the front pastedown. Held by the Estate of Yousuf & Estrellita Karsh; after Yousuf’s death in 2002 passing to Estrellita Karsh; after Estrellita’s death in March 2025 passing to Katherine Getchell. Near fine in a very good dust jacket. Jacket design by Kathleen Haven.
Edward Steichen (1879–1973) was an American photographer, painter, and curator whose career spanned more than seven decades and whose influence on the development of photography as both a fine art and a commercial medium was unparalleled in the twentieth century. Born in Luxembourg and raised in Milwaukee, Steichen emerged as a central figure in the Pictorialist movement at the turn of the century, co-founding alongside Alfred Stieglitz the Photo-Secession group in 1902 and the landmark gallery 291, which became the first American venue to exhibit the work of Cézanne, Matisse, and Picasso alongside photography. After serving as a military aerial photographer during the First World War — an experience that convinced him to abandon painterly soft-focus effects in favor of sharp, precise imagery — Steichen reinvented himself as the preeminent commercial photographer of the interwar period, shooting for Vanity Fair and Vogue throughout the 1920s and 1930s and producing some of the most celebrated portraiture and fashion photography of the era. His post-Second World War career reached its popular apex with his tenure as Director of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, where he organized the 1955 exhibition The Family of Man — a monumental collection of 503 photographs drawn from 68 countries that toured the world and was seen by nine million visitors — widely regarded as the most ambitious and widely attended photography exhibition in history. Steichen received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963.
A Life in Photography.
$2,000.00
In Stock
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