Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1910 (Heft 30))

THE ART OF EDUARD J. STEICHEN

A CERTAIN exclusiveness and a preference for work of particular
choiceness have always characterised the exhibitions at the Mon-
tross Galleries. To its list of artists has recently been added Eduard
Steichen, of whose work an exhibition has just been held. It was the conclud-
ing feature of the Gallery’s existence at the old address and a prelude to the
widened scope which its present larger galleries will involve.
Steichen on this occasion was represented both by photographs and oil-
paintings. The simultaneous showing of the two mediums, I understand, was at
Mr. Montross’s own request. It proves not only that gentleman’s discriminating
taste for what is fine, but also the sureness of his perception in recognizing how
completely the two mediums have been united in Steichen’s advance. Those
of us who can remember the first appearance of his print, “The Pool,” made
over twelve years ago, before he had come in contact with art and artists, know
that it was a work of remarkable distinction and beauty, and can look back to
it as the acorn out of which all his subsequent growth has naturally proceeded.
For it represented an original and very personal vision of nature; at once large
and embracing, yet very sensitive in its feeling both for the sentiment of the
scene and for the method of its expression. The sense of tonality and appre-
ciation of values would have been remarkable, had the print been the product
of a man who was in the way of hearing these qualities discussed and of seeing
them exemplified. But Steichen’s only mentor had been the reproductions
and the text in Camera Notes; valuable as far as they went, yet limited in
scope and suggestion. The sense, in fact, and the appreciation were innate in
the young man himself. He was original from the start.
Moreover in the character of its expression that early print struck the key
to which all Steichen’s succeeding development has been tuned. It involved,
as I have said, a personal vision and a feeling for ensemble and for effects of
massing spontaneously arranged, but a feeling also for abstraction of expres-
sion. It was the work of a man with whom ideas already counted; who dis-
covered in his subject an idea and strove for its expression; who looked into a
fact for the soul of the fact, and, consciously or unconsciously, invested the
perceptions of the concrete with the conceptions of the abstract.
I am often twitted with dwelling upon the psychological side of an artist’s
work to some neglect of the technique of his painting. Possibly I do; because
in the final analysis it is the quality of the artist’s mind and the bias of his
purpose that not only inform and shape his technique but determine the value
of its expression. Cleverness and skill are admirable. A bookkeeper may be
a master in the manipulation of figures, yet he misses the genius of a financier;
and the adroit technician may be a good painter, yet from mental deficiency
lack the higher quality of an artist. You may fit a fountain with excellent
plumbing, but its spray of water can only approximate to, never rise above,
the height of its source. It is the same with a man, even if he be a painter. It is
the quality of the inspiration and the volume of the momentum that count; and
accordingly I am apt to dwell upon these requisites of an artist’s equipment.

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