Word: steichen
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...late great John Pierpont Morgan once sat for his portrait. Because he sat impatiently, badly, the painter wanted a photograph to help him. Banker Morgan agreed to allow a photographer just two minutes for the job. The next day he arrived punctually to find Photographer Edward J. Steichen, 27, waiting for him. Mr. Steichen had been there for a half-hour studying lights and shades, posing the janitor of the building in the chair where Banker Morgan would sit. Briskly he shunted the sitter to his seat. Banker Morgan sat down, glared into the lens. Snap. One picture was taken...
...Morgan moved his head around, then swung it back into the identical position. But Photographer Steichen had got what he wanted?his subject had relaxed. It was the same pose, but more naturally and easily arrived at. Snap. Another picture. Exactly two minutes had elapsed...
When Photographer Steichen next saw Banker Morgan, he showed him prints of the two pictures. Banker Morgan liked the first, tense pose, ordered a dozen copies. The second, Photographer Steichen's favorite, showed the subject looming characteristically massive out of Rembrandtesque shadow. A trick of light made the chair arm look like a broad, naked knife in Banker Morgan's hand. Banker Morgan looked at this picture, tore it in shreds...
Back to his studio went Photographer Steichen, sorely nettled. He labored over the second plate until he got a fine, enlarged print. He showed it around. Everybody liked it. Belle da Costa Greene, able Morgan librarian, pronounced it the greatest portrait of her boss which she had ever seen. When she showed it to him, he declared he had never seen it before, authorized her to buy it. She made a bid of $5,000 to famed pioneer Photographer Alfred Stieglitz (TIME, Feb. 25), then editor of Camera Work, who owned the print. He refused. She then begged Photographer Steichen...
Photographer Steichen was born in Milwaukee in 1879, son of a copper miner and a milliner. His boyhood was spent doing odd jobs. He was the first bicycle messenger in Milwaukee. Because he liked to draw and had bought a camera with his savings, he was apprenticed at 15 to American Lithographing Co., where, for three dollars a week, he washed spittoons, swept floors. Soon he was drawing advertisements. Most famed was his large poster of a voluptuously reclining lady with the legend, "Cascarets; they work while you sleep...