Edward Steichen

Soon after moving from Paris to New York in 1923, Steichen read a Vanity Fair article that claimed he was giving up photography for painting, when in fact the opposite was true. Upon correcting the error with the magazine’s editor, Steichen was invited to a lunch with publisher Condé Nast, who promptly offered him the position of chief photographer. Steichen accepted, and his portraits of luminaries of the theater, literature, music, and the visual arts, along with those of scientists, athletes, and fashionable “It Girls” were published in both Vanity Fair and Vogue from 1923 to 1938. His work set a new standard for future portrait photographers, whose work would appear in both magazines and galleries.