Edward Jean Steichen - In Memoriam - Google Art Project

''In Memoriam'' is a black-and-white photograph by American photographer

Edward Steichen Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography. Steichen was credited with tr ...

, from 1904. It is one of his best-known

pictorialist Pictorialism is an international style and aesthetic movement that dominated photography during the later 19th and early 20th centuries. There is no standard definition of the term, but in general it refers to a style in which the photographer ha ...

works and is a nude portrayal of a deceased female model, hence its title.

History and description

Steichen visited Paris in 1900 and 1901, where he knew the French artistic contemporary tendencies in painting and sculpture. When he returned to the United States in 1902 he joined

Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...

Photo-Secession The Photo-Secession was an early 20th century movement that promoted photography as a fine art in general and photographic pictorialism in particular. A group of photographers, led by Alfred Stieglitz and F. Holland Day in the early 20th centur ...

movement, the main purpose of which was the recognition of photography as an art form. Steichen produced the current photograph while in Paris, in 1900 or in 1901, but it was only printed in 1904. It depicts a nude female model. She is believed to have committed suicide because of her unrequited love for Steichen. The naked woman is seated, inclined to her right, with her face not visible, and one her arms in front of her long dark hair. An enigmatic, circular object, lies at her feet. The blurred enigmatic, erotic and poetic figure shows the influence of

symbolism Symbolism or symbolist may refer to: Arts * Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism ** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries ** Russian sy ...

and possibly also the sculptural work of

Auguste Rodin François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...

. The picture focus more in her naked flesh while hiding her face. The Musée d'Orsay website states that: "As in many pictorial photographs, this nude is blurred, enhancing the impression of mystery introduced by the studied pose of the model with her face hidden. The way the figure occupies the space is typical of Steichen's compositional skills. In spite of the abstract nature of the image, emphasised by the chiaroscuro throughout the photograph, we can feel the physical weight of the woman's body, which is somewhat unusual in Steichen's nudes who are usually more ethereal."

Art market

A print of the photograph sold by $665,000 at

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is ...

New York City, on 18 February 2016.

Public collections

There are prints of the photograph at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, in New York City, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, in New York City, the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

, the

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With encyclopedic collections of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums between t ...

, and at the

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art ...

, in Paris.Musée d'Orsay
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:In Memoriam 1900s photographs 1904 in art Photographs by Edward Steichen Black-and-white photographs Nude photography Photographs in the Museum of Modern Art (New York City) Photographs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Photographs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art Photographs in the Musée d'Orsay