{"id":17244,"date":"2023-03-25T07:42:33","date_gmt":"2023-03-25T11:42:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=17244"},"modified":"2023-03-25T07:42:33","modified_gmt":"2023-03-25T11:42:33","slug":"homage-to-edward-steichen-who-died-on-this-day-fifty-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/homage-to-edward-steichen-who-died-on-this-day-fifty-years-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Homage to Edward Steichen who died on this day fifty years ago."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Born in Bivange, Luxembourg on 27 March 1897, the young Edward emigrated to the US with his parents when he was 18.\u00a0 <\/span>His was a long, varied & rich artistic career: though mainly known as a photographer, he was also a painter, director, curator, gardner & passionate experimenter.<\/p>\n

As director of the department of photography of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Steichen created two monumental exhibitions in the 50s & 60s :\u00a0The Family of Man\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0The Bitter Years<\/i>. As an homage to his native country, he bequeathed the first of these to Luxembourg where one can visit it at the Chateau of Clervaux (https:\/\/www.visit-clervaux.lu\/en\/art\/the-family-of-man<\/span><\/a>).<\/p>\n

A few years back I wrote the poem below (also included in my 2015 book barzakh<\/em>) as an homage to Steichen & his work.<\/p>\n

Letter to Steichen\u2019s Ed<\/b><\/p>\n

In fact, every photograph is a fake from start to finish, a purely impersonal, unmanipulated photograph being practically impossible.<\/i> \u2014 Edward Steichen<\/p>\n

Leiwen Ed,<\/p>\n

Ech wees net ops du ons Sproch nach gekannt hues,<\/p>\n

that\u2019s why I\u2019ll address you in American English.<\/p>\n

You were born zu B\u00e9iwen, bei Roeser, in Luxembourg,<\/p>\n

I was not<\/p>\n

You were an American citizen,<\/p>\n

I am still not,<\/p>\n

I am just a plain citizen of Luxembourg.<\/p>\n

You believed in the family of man<\/p>\n

I am weary of families of any order and species.<\/p>\n

But you are<\/i> family<\/p>\n

in that photo by Dana those clear blue<\/p>\n

Luxembourg eyes exactly like cousin Lol\u2019s, the cut<\/p>\n

of the face too, there\u2019s a resemblance, close to<\/p>\n

the bone, close to the farm<\/p>\n

a way in which the head<\/p>\n

is held. High & loose. You\u2019re my home-<\/p>\n

boy of old, Ed, a<\/p>\n

cousin, maybe even<\/p>\n

\u201ccousin germain\u201d<\/p>\n

as the French wld say?<\/p>\n

Now, you burned your paintings<\/p>\n

when your gardener imitated one of yours \u2014<\/p>\n

a strange act, a criticism of<\/p>\n

the representation of representation, maybe?<\/p>\n

Or just a cheap trick to prove Duchamp wrong<\/p>\n

for saying \u201cstupide comme un peintre\u201d<\/p>\n

& move on to the new technologies?<\/p>\n

Now, I never burned a single poem<\/p>\n

have kept them all,<\/p>\n

but then you had Carl Sandburg<\/p>\n

in the family, devoted companion<\/p>\n

for long walks & writing for you<\/p>\n

I have always hated taking<\/p>\n

photos but bought a camera at sixty<\/p>\n

to shoot landscapes<\/p>\n

& the family of one Joris<\/p>\n

& half a dozen friends<\/p>\n

but I always leave it home<\/p>\n

or forget that it is in my pocket.<\/p>\n

You were a famous delphinium breeder<\/p>\n

I only brood over words<\/p>\n

make poems & make anthologies,<\/p>\n

weird cut flower bouquets<\/p>\n

I am in Albany NY & sometimes<\/p>\n

visit Buffalo where<\/p>\n

you did avant-garde color autochromes<\/p>\n

the year Ford introduced the model T-Ford<\/p>\n

and one year after Picasso painted<\/p>\n

his Demoiselles<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Ah the autochrome!<\/p>\n

Hot off the 1903 minds<\/p>\n

of the Fr\u00e8res Lumi\u00e8re,<\/p>\n

them I\u2019ve seen the Light Brothers,<\/p>\n

first marketed in our year 1907,<\/p>\n

it is an additive method<\/p>\n

a process involving millions<\/p>\n

of microscopic<\/p>\n

grains of potato starch<\/p>\n

(did you ever think of<\/p>\n

the Luxembourg staple<\/p>\n

food, d\u2019gromper<\/i>, when you<\/p>\n

loaded the camera?)<\/p>\n

dyed<\/p>\n

bright blue-violet,<\/p>\n

bright orange-red<\/p>\n

& Kelly green<\/p>\n

dusted on a slightly concave piece of glass<\/p>\n

already coated with liquid pitch mixed<\/p>\n

with a dram of beeswax<\/p>\n

to keep it \u201ctacky\u201d<\/p>\n

the random spaces filled with lamp-black<\/p>\n

& a panchromatic silver halide emulsion<\/p>\n

the resultant screen<\/p>\n

was stochastic in nature<\/p>\n

a random array<\/p>\n

an abstraction way beyond the Demoiselles\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n

demure cubism<\/p>\n

though the light you let<\/p>\n

pass through the photo-sensitive plate<\/p>\n

coming off<\/p>\n

your \u201csubjects\u201d, say Charlotte<\/p>\n

Spaulding in Buffalo,<\/p>\n

with the starch grains remaining as aligned<\/p>\n

as the starch of her lacy dress<\/p>\n

organized this randomness into<\/p>\n

plain Edwardian beauty.<\/p>\n

Ed, you were not Edwardian,<\/p>\n

you were just a Luxembourg lad<\/p>\n

in America who made good<\/p>\n

& moved with ease between<\/p>\n

Cond\u00e9 Nast & this here place,<\/p>\n

fifty years before Warhol.<\/p>\n

If I am trying so hard to<\/p>\n

understand this autochrome process<\/p>\n

(of which you said \u201c no medium<\/p>\n

can give me color of such<\/p>\n

wonderful luminosity\u201d)<\/p>\n

it is because you also said:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t take doors off their hinges,<\/p>\n

how are you going to know<\/p>\n

to put doors back on their hinges?\u201d<\/p>\n

Though that, cousin Ed,<\/p>\n

may be where we disagree:<\/p>\n

why put the doors back on<\/p>\n

the hinges,<\/p>\n

beauty will bolt anyway,<\/p>\n

and all we are ever left with<\/p>\n

is the beauty of doing the work,<\/p>\n

the handwork, the hands on work,<\/p>\n

your plates, my words.<\/p>\n

Merci, cousin,<\/p>\n

\u2018daz gut ze wessen<\/p>\n

daz du hei wars virun mir.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Born in Bivange, Luxembourg on 27 March 1897, the young Edward emigrated to the US with his parents when he was 18.\u00a0 His was a long, varied & rich artistic career: though mainly known...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17244"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17250,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17244\/revisions\/17250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}