André Steiner (9 December 1901, Miháld,

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

–29 September 1978, Paris, France) was a French photographer.

Early life

Andras (later known as 'André' in France) Steiner was born in Miháld in Hungary into a Jewish family. After the end of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and the proclamation of the

Republic of Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

, at age 17 he chose exile in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, Austria. There he attended the Vienna University of Technology to study

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and was made assistant to photography historian Josef Maria Eder who encouraged him to take up the medium and, through the Leitz firm, provided him with an early

Leica Leica Camera AG () is a German company that manufactures cameras, optical lenses, photographic lenses, binoculars, rifle scopes and microscopes. The company was founded by Ernst Leitz in 1869 (Ernst Leitz Wetzlar), in Wetzlar, Germany. ...

model to test. An accomplished sportsman Steiner, through his involvement in Hakoah, Vienna's Jewish sports circle, and as one of the trainers of the prestigious swim team to which she belonged, he met Léa Sasson then aged thirteen.

Paris

Despite an age difference of 9 years and conflicting origins; she the daughter of a

Sephardic Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), ...

Istanbul Jewish family, and he a Hungarian and

Ashkenazi Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...

, they married in Hungary, when he was 27 and Lily had reached eighteen, and arrived in Paris as husband and wife where they adopted French names André and Lily. He was a

Decathlon The decathlon is a combined event in Athletics (sport), athletics consisting of ten track and field events. The word "decathlon" was formed, in analogy to the word "pentathlon", from Greek language, Greek δέκα (''déka'', meaning "ten") and ...

champion at the Worldwide University Games of that year held in the city. Daughter Nicole (Steiner-Bajolet) was born in 1934.

Photographer

At first André worked as a sound engineer with Althsom until 1932 for

Paramount Studios Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production and distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest ...

and the Phototone Society, and collaborating with Gasparcolor on the development of colour motion picture film. These photography-related experiences inspired Steiner's desire to become a professional photographer. Setting up a commercial studio in 1933, he preferred to work alone rather than join the considerable Hungarian photographic community in Paris which included André Kertész,

Brassaï Brassaï (; pseudonym of Gyula Halász; 9 September 1899 – 8 July 1984) was a Hungarian–French photographer, sculptor, medalist, writer, and filmmaker who rose to international fame in France in the 20th century. He was one of the numerous H ...

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, Émeric Fehér,

Lucien Hervé Lucien Hervé (born László Elkán on 7 August 1910 in Hungary, died 26 June 2007 in Paris) was a Hungarian photographer. He was notable for his architectural photography, beginning with his work for Le Corbusier. Biography * 1910 : Born as ...

Rogi André Rogi André (born Rozsa Klein, 10 August 1900, Budapest – 11 April 1970, Paris) was a Hungarian-born French photographer and artist. She was the first wife of André Kertész. Early life Rozsa Klein was born on 10 August 1900 in Budapest, the da ...

, Rosie Rey and others lesser known. However Warren points out that both he and Kertesz "experimented with distortion techniques to create startling images of human flesh;" Steiner's, in his series entitled ''Anamorphose'' (Anamorphosis), being limited to hands and faces and not the nudes that Kertesz produced. His scientific approach to the medium through his technical background in engineering influenced his precise and perfectionist photography, especially in modernist studies of cast shadows from transparent or translucent materials. An interest in '' culture physique'' resulted in his nude studies, most often in collaboration with Lily, until their separation in 1938. Warren notes that in his nudes "The pose of the model, the framing, and the lighting are Steiner’s main parameters. Through lighting, flesh itself becomes light, detaching from a dark background. As he re-centers his compositions, Steiner isolates, fragments, and redefines the human body as pure plastic form. But, as opposed to Man Ray, who also uses re-centering in order to interpret the human body, there is no surrealist ambition in Steiner’s work."

Magazine work

He was a contributor to 15 issues, including nudes and cover pictures, of ''

Paris Sex-Appeal ''Paris Sex-Appeal'' was a monthly French erotic magazine published in Paris by Henri Francois from 1933 to 1951, though it was suspended during World War II. It featured light French fiction and articles. Illustrations throughout were erotic nud ...

'' 1934–35, and frequently to ''Art et Médecine'' during 1933–1937, firstly of photographs of flowers in the snow, summer beaches in 1935, for a feature entitled 'Femmes' a picture of Lily breast-feeding their child, and such subjects as architecture, cloud studies, aviation and ice hockey. Sports photographs he made during a trip to Morocco in 1933 were included in ''Photographie 1934'', edited by Arts et métiers graphiques and attracted the attention of Lucien Vogel at '' Vu'' magazine, which featured his cinematic sequence of a swimmer diving, full page in its July 1936 edition and 32 other stories between 1933 and 1940. His work was selected for the International Exhibition of Contemporary Photography at the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris in 1936 and was subsequently specially commissioned for reportage by magazines ''Vu,'' '' Paris-soir'', '' Marianne,

Harper's Bazaar ''Harper's Bazaar'' is an American monthly women's fashion magazine. It was first published in New York City on November 2, 1867, as the weekly ''Harper's Bazar''. ''Harper's Bazaar'' is published by Hearst and considers itself to be the st ...

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'' and others. In 1939 he made a series of the Swedish dancer

Lisa Fonssagrives Lisa or LISA may refer to: People People with the mononym * Lisa Lisa (born 1967), American actress and lead singer of the Cult Jam * Lisa (Japanese musician, born 1974), stylized "LISA", Japanese singer and producer * Lisa Komine (born 1978), J ...

(who modelled for and married

Irving Penn Irving Penn (June 16, 1917October 7, 2009) was an American photographer known for his fashion photography, portraits, and still lifes. Penn's career included work at ''Vogue'' magazine, and independent advertising work for clients including Is ...

). He also profited from production of advertising and architectural photography.

World War II

In the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Steiner joined the French Air Army and was made a French citizen, later becoming a member of the

Resistance Resistance may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Comics * Either of two similarly named but otherwise unrelated comic book series, both published by Wildstorm: ** ''Resistance'' (comics), based on the video game of the same title ** ''T ...

among numerous young Jewish-Hungarian artists and intellectuals, including the painter Sándor Józsa, sculptor István Hajdú ( Etienne Hajdu), journalists László Kőrösi and Imre Gyomrai, another photographer

(by then also a French citizen), and the printer Ladislas Mandel.

Post-war and later career

The War delayed publication of a book of nude studies until 1947, he then produced aesthetic illustrations for a fine 1948 photogravure monograph on the sculpture of Rodin, but abandoned exhibition and publication of artistic photography to concentrate on applied work in the fields of industrial and medical imaging for which he also acted as a consultant. Steiner died of a heart attack in Paris on 29 September 1978.

Exhibitions

* 1934 ''Groupe annuel des photographes'' (Annual Group of Photographers); Galerie de la Pléiade; Paris, France *1935 ''La publicité par la photographie'' (Advertising through Photography); Galerie de la Pléiade; Paris, France *1936 Exposition internationale de la photographie contemporaine (International Exhibition of Contemporary Photography); Musée des Arts décoratifs (Pavillon de Marsan); Paris, France *1938 ''Photos de neige'' (Snow Photographs); Au Grand Atelier; Paris, France *1986 ''La Nouvelle Photographie en France, 1919–1939'' (New Photography in France, 1919–1939); Musée Sainte-Croix; Poitiers, France *1987 ''Das verborgene Bild. Geschichte des ma¨nnlichen Akts in der Fotografie des 19 und 20 Jahrhunderts'' (The Secret Picture. History of the Male Nude Photography of 19th and 20th Centuries); Kunstverein; Frankfort-am-Main, German *1989 ''Visions du sport, photographies 1860–1960'' (Visions of Sports, Photographs 1860–1960); Centre national de la Photographie; Paris, France, France *1991 Das Neue Sehen: von der Fotografie am Bauhaus zur Subjektiven Fotografie (The New Vision: from Bauhaus to Subjective Photography); Munich, Germany *1997 Anne´es 30 en Europe. Le temps menacant, 1929–1939 (The 1930s in Europe. The threatening Times, 1929–1930); Muse´e d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris; Paris, France *2001 Figures parfaites. Hommage à Emmanuel Sougez (Perfect Figures. Homage to Emmanuel Sougez); Musée de Grenoble; Grenoble, Switzerland2014, 27 February–20 April:

Multimedia Art Museum Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as Text (literary theory), text, Sound, audio, Image, images, Animation, animations, or video into a single i ...

, Moscow * 2019, 13 April–15 June: ''La Bascule Du Regard''. Les Douches La Galerie, Paris * 2018, 26 April–27 July: ''A Luta Continua. The Sylvio Perlstein Collection.'' Hauser & Wirth, Chelsea, New York * 2019, 28 November–24 December: ''Christmas Selection''. Les Douches La Galerie, Paris * 2019–2020, 4 October–4 January: ''AU REVOIR! Magyar származású fotográfusok Franciaországban'' ('Au revoir! Photographers of Hungarian Heritage in France'). Castle Museum – Budapest History Museum, Budapest * 2020, 24 January–14 March: ''Les Choses de la Vie'', Les Douches La Galerie, Paris * 2021, 11 March–31 July: ''In Praise of the Hand'', Les Douches La Galerie, Paris * 2022, 18 February–30 April: ''Bordering the Real: Surrealist Photographs''. Les Douches La Galerie, Paris

Collections

* Getty Museum * Musée Nicéphore Niépce

Bibliography

* * A.-Henri. Martinie, ''Rodin'', photographs of sculptures by André Steiner, Braun & Cie, 1948 * * Domergue, Jean-Gabriel. Foreword. ''Etudes de nus'' (Nude Studies). Paris: Tiranty, 1952. * Besson, George. ''Nus'' (Nudes). Paris: Braun, 1953. *Sougez Emmanuel. ‘‘André Steiner, curieux homme’’ (‘‘Andre´ Steiner, curious Man’’). ''Camera'' no. 4, (April 1962): 6–34. * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Steiner, Andre 1901 births Hungarian photographers 1978 deaths Hungarian emigrants to France French photographers French photojournalists Nude photography Architectural photographers French Resistance members Medical photographers Industrial photographers Sports photographers Hungarian Jews