Edward Steichen

palladium print, signed 'Photo by Edward Steichen' in pencil and with title (twice), date, '3.' and other notations in pencil and ink on the reverse, framed, 1921

The photographer to his wife, Joanna Steichen

Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, 2005

Edward Steichen, A Life in Photography (New York, 1963), pl. 85

This early palladium print is remarkable for its rich range of golden tonality and the delicate details it conveys. The texture and marbling of the stone columns and the drapery of Duncan's dress are masterfully rendered. The print is on double-weight paper with a nearly matte surface and thin brown margins. A faint, uneven sheen in the upper portion of the image suggests that this print may have been waxed, a not-uncommon process at the time. When viewing the print in raking light, 2 small circular areas in the upper corners appear slightly more matte, and there is a linear glossy deposit, possibly retouching, near the left edge. An extremely close evaluation of the print reveals a few very small flat creases, which are not in the least discernible when viewing the print from a normal distance. There is light wear along the margin edges and corners. The reverse of the print is annotated in an unidentified hand in pencil: 'Isadora Duncan Columns of the Parthenon'; 'Photo by Edward Steichen'; 'CA 25331'; '1920 or 1921'; and '3.' [in ink]. There is also light soiling and age-darkening on the reverse.
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The famous Isadora Duncan never allowed herself to be filmed.  As the photographer Arnold Genthe once wrote, ‘that Isadora could never be induced to let the cinema camera record any of her dances is a calamity.’  What is lost to history—Duncan moving on film—was instead captured in dozens of drawings by the artist Abraham Walkowitz and in still photographs by Arnold Genthe and others.  Among the very best of Duncan photographs is a series made by Edward Steichen in Greece, the spiritual home of Duncan’s revolutionary technique.  

The photograph offered here comes from that series.  Steichen had traveled to the Acropolis with the Isadorables because Duncan had promised she would give him a chance at the Holy Grail:  the opportunity to film her with a motion picture camera.   But in the end, as Steichen remembered in his autobiography, ‘She changed her mind.  She said she didn’t want her dancing recorded in motion pictures but would rather have it remembered as legend’ (A Life in Photography, facing pl. 83) .  And so, with a borrowed camera, he made a handful of still photographs that are timeless: Duncan posing alone in the Parthenon, at one with its majesty and monumentality.  

In the present photograph, the dancer is framed by the line of columns in the Parthenon’s portico.  ‘She removed her cloak,’ Steichen recounted, ‘and stood there in her Greek tunic.  And here she contributed what only an artist like Isadora could contribute.  She made a gesture completely related to the columns.’    This session with Steichen was the only time Duncan was photographed in the Parthenon, and his pictures convey the essence of both the legendary Isadora and the building.  ‘Her whole art of dancing was inspired by the Greek architectural friezes and the drawings on Greek vases,’ Steichen wrote.  ‘She was a part of Greece, and she took Greece as a part of herself’ (ibid., facing pl. 83). 

The rich palladium print offered here comes originally from the collection of the photographer’s widow, Joanna Steichen.  No other prints of the image have been located at the time of this writing.  More often found is the picture of Duncan, arms outstretched, in the portal of the Parthenon, or of one of the Isadorables in a terpsichorean pose.