Retrospective: Roaring 20's fashion with master of photography, Edward Steichen

Edward Steichen: In High Fashion, the Condé Nast Years 1923-1937

Thanks to the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Condé Nast publications archival records and the unmeasurable efforts of curators William Ewing, Todd Brandow and Nathalie Hershdorfer, fashion and photography lovers can take a glimpse into the Edward Steichen's legacy. The exhibit counts with 200 out of 2000 of Steichen's vintage portraits featuring celebrities and haute couture during the years he served as chief photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair magazines from 1923 to 1937. It was during this period that he paved the way for modern high fashion photography, but the most impressive aspect of this exhibition lies in the quality of the prints and the immaculate preservation of the pieces.
His iconic portraiture work include celebrities like actors Charlie Chaplin, Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Gloria Swanson (on this post), filmmakers like Cecil B. DeMille, Ernst Lubitsch and Walt Disney, painters like Matisse, writers like W.B. Yates, E.E. Cummings and Collete, musicians like Stravinsky, Horowits and Gershwin; and statesmen like Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover, to mention a few.

Steichen's striking and innovative outlook on the use of photographic equipment stands out from other photographers of his time who sought the outdoors for a natural approach. Steichen was the first photographer to explore the camera as a tool for communication and made art out of fashion photography at the peak of his artistic career with Conde Nast. Thanks to his innovative and contemporary approach we have an influential historical record of fashion photography and a glimpse to fifteen of the seventy yeas of artistic career. The exhibition runs until April 11, 2010 at The Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale.