10.12.2004 - 30.01.2005

Not surprisingly, the MNHA's Edward Steichen collection is particularly rich in portraits. Wasn't Steichen crowned 'the world's best portrait photographer' by Frank Crowninshied, the editor of 'Vanity Fair'? It is the zeitgeist between the two wars that Steichen masterfully evokes, an idealised, stylised version of American life. These photographs hardly reflect the harsh realities of the time; Steichen's message is surprisingly uplifting. In these seemingly innocuous or even frivolous photographs we find, in a way, the designer of 'Family of Man' and 'Bitter Years', the master of the 'Grand Canyon of Humanity'.