Edward Steichen

oversized multiple-process print, the photographer's stylized title in the negative, signed and dated in Roman numerals by the photographer in the negative and in yellow crayon on the image, mounted to brown board, matted, framed, 1901, printed in 1902

Originally from the collection of Margaret Robinson, Milwaukee

By descent to the great-grandson of Margaret Robinson

Christie's New York, 30 October 1989, Sale 6906, Lot 48

Acquired by the present owner from the above

Other prints of this image:

Camera Work Number 14 (New York, 1906), p. 5

Edward Steichen, A Life in Photography (New York, 1963), pl. 13

Dennis Longwell, Steichen: The Master Prints, 1895-1914 The Symbolist Period (The Museum of Modern Art, 1978), pl. 14

Joel Smith, Edward Steichen: The Early Years (Princeton University Press and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 13

Joanna Steichen, Steichen's Legacy: Photographs 1895-1973 (New York, 2000), pl. 129

Todd Brandow and William A. Ewing, Edward Steichen: Lives in Photography (Minneapolis and Lausanne, 2007, in conjunction with the exhibition organized by the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography), pl. 12

Weston J. Naef, The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz: Fifty Pioneers of Modern Photography (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978), cat. 459

20th Century Photography (Köln: Museum Ludwig, 2001), p. 650

This large, bravura print shows Steichen's mastery in creating portraits that are rife with visual drama. Steichen's handling of the light in this image is remarkable: he has confined the illumination to Watts's profile, while the remainder of the image consists of deep black or dark gray tones. The print is essentially in excellent condition. The faint sheen visible on the print is likely due to Steichen's application of some sort of coating – a common practice for the photographer. When the print is examined very closely in raking light, some minor variations in the sheen are visible – these are not visible when the print is viewed straight on. When the print is examined very closely, a tiny indentation can be seen in the area of Watts's cap which breaks the emulsion slightly. The uneven line in the lower left corner of the image appears to be due to an imperfection in the negative and not in the print itself. Close inspection of this suggests that Steichen may have retouched this line on the print. Steichen has accentuated his signature in the negative by going over the letters in yellow crayon. The print is mounted to thin stiff board which is brown on the front and gray/brown on the reverse. There are two circular areas of loss on the reverse of the mount where a label or labels were likely removed.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Steichen's photograph of the English painter G. F. Watts was the first in a series of monumental portrait studies of distinguished European artists, a series that came to include not only painters, but also sculptors, authors, and musicians.  Made in London in 1900, the Watts portrait was followed by portraits of the great Auguste Rodin (see Lot 14), the German artist Franz von Lembach, the Symbolist writer Maurice Maeterlinck, the sculptor Albert Bartholomé, the painter Paul-Albert Besnard, and the German composer and conductor Richard Strauss.  The portraits are painterly and dramatic, with expressive chiaroscuro. 'I aim for the expression of something psychological,' Steichen once commented. 'I am not satisfied with the mere reproduction of [the sitter's] features and expression.  I aim first to know the man and his work, to study him from different points, before I venture upon his portrait' (quoted in William Innes Homer, Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession, p. 90).

George Frederic Watts (1817 - 1904) was one of the most celebrated British artists of the nineteenth century, best known for his allegorical paintings, such as the well-known Hope, and also for his own extensive series of oil portraits of great men.  The numerous canvases in Watts's 'House of Fame,' nearly 50 of which are now owned by the National Portrait Gallery in London, must have been known to Steichen and may have been the inspiration for the photographer's own portrait project.  Rather than having his subject face the camera directly, Steichen instead photographed Watts in profile, a pose the painter seems to have favored when portraits of him were made.  Seemingly lost in contemplation, Watts emerges haunting and magisterial from the masterfully modulated dark tones of the background.

The Watts portrait became one of Steichen's signature pieces in early exhibitions, not only in Europe, but also in the important Pittsburgh Photo-Secession exhibition of 1904 and the landmark International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography at Buffalo's Albright Art Gallery in 1910.  Like Steichen's study of Eleonora Duse (see Lot 114), the Watts portrait was included in Steichen's first one-man show at the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession in March of 1906; a print in the large-format size of the photograph offered here was in that exhibition, and is visible in one of Stieglitz's installation shots, reproduced in Greenough et al., Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries, fig. 2. Several states of the Watts study are extant, with differing degrees of manipulation in the negative or print, and with variations in the stylized lettering of the artist's name.  The Watts portrait offered here is the version of the image that was reproduced in Camera Work Number 14, an issue devoted to Steichen's photography that was published in the spring of 1906, in conjunction with his Little Galleries exhibition. 

The present photograph comes originally from the collection of Margaret (Mrs. Arthur) Robinson, a neighbor of the Steichen family in Milwaukee.  In the spring of 1900, before leaving for Europe, Steichen was invited by Robinson to exhibit his work in her front parlor—it was 'his first one-man show, makeshift as it was, with more than fifty sketches, paintings, and photographs propped up on Mrs. Robinson's sofa, chairs, tables, and even on the piano' (Niven, Steichen: A Biography, p. 63). A photograph of this early show is reproduced in the recent Edward Steichen: Lives in Photography, p. 294, fig. 227.  In 1902, as a gesture of his gratitude, Steichen gave Robinson the exhibition-sized print of Watts offered here, which remained in her family until 1989, when it appeared at auction.

At the time of this writing, the following early prints of the image have been located: a direct carbon print in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the gift of Alfred Stieglitz; a large gum platinum print in the Royal Photographic Society Collection, now in Bradford, England; and a heavily manipulated and solarized gum and platinum interpretation of the image, offered at auction in 1990 and now in a private collection.