Edward Steichen

warm-toned, credited, titled, dated, and inscribed 'Please return to Edward Steichen, The Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53 NY 19' by Grace Mayer and with annotations in pencil on the reverse, 1921

Collection of Joanna Steichen

 Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, 2003

Vanity Fair, June 1923, p. 55

Vogue, January 1938, p. 40

Steichen the Photographer (The Museum of Modern Art, 1961), p. 43

Todd Brandow and William A. Ewing, Edward Steichen: Lives in Photography (New York and London, 2007), pl. 89

This warm-toned early print is remarkable for its rich range of tonality and the delicate details it conveys. It is on double-weight paper with a smooth surface. Steichen also rendered this image in platinum and ferro-prussiate, but this gelatin silver print presents an equally impressive rendering of Steichen's icon. Aside from minimal wear and chipping along the black margin edges, this print is in essentially excellent condition. In raking light, a small hairline scratch is visible in the lower left corner of the image. A fine patina of age-appropriate silvering is visible in the dark areas of the image and in the margins. The margin corners are bumped. The reverse of the print is appropriately age-darkened at the edges. Also on the reverse of the print are the following notations in an unidentified hand in pencil: 'Wind Fire - Therese Duncan - VF - June 1923' (a reference to this image's first published appearance); '28 / 1-6-32'; '87' (circled); 'PF 40949'; and 'ES142.1.'
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Steichen made this photograph on the Acropolis in 1921, in the company of the legendary modern dancer Isadora Duncan and her young female pupils, frequently referred to as 'Isadorables.'  The model in this image is Thérèse Duncan, one of Isadora’s adopted daughters.  Born Thérèse Kruger in Dresden, Germany, she was spotted by Duncan in a school Christmas pageant and recruited for Duncan’s school of dance in Grunewald.  She toured with the Isadorables in America in the 1910s, and left the company in 1922, not long after posing for Steichen on the windblown summit of the Acropolis.

The years directly after World War One were a period of transition for Edward Steichen. He had reached preeminence in the photography world of the early 20th century for his bravura Pictorialist studies, had earned the accolades of Alfred Stieglitz, and had exhibited his work internationally.  During the war he became engaged with photography in an entirely different way, working as an aerial reconnaissance photographer for the United States military.  By his own account, the war years transformed him, and after he returned home to Voulangis, he rebuilt himself from scratch as a creative artist.  His initial photographic experiments from this time involved semi-abstract compositions with philosophical titles, such as Diagram of Doom and Time-Space Continuum, as well as studies of flowers and fruits from his beloved garden.  A trip to Venice in 1921 threw him together, by chance, with Isadora Duncan and her pupils.  Duncan, whose choreography was heavily inspired by ancient Grecian art, insisted that Steichen accompany them on a trip to Athens.  One of the enticements for Steichen was the promised opportunity to photograph Duncan in a most appropriate setting: the Parthenon.

As it happened, Duncan was overwhelmed by the massive ancient structure, and she offered Steichen only a handful of poses.  The lively Thérèse, however, provided Steichen with an altogether different photographic subject.  In A Life in Photography, Steichen recounts how he chased the graceful dancer around the Acropolis, photographing her in motion, sometimes even losing sight of her as she danced through the ruins.  Wind Fire is the definitive image from this series.  In Steichen's vast and diverse body of work, Wind Fire is one of the only images in which movement – in the curving form of Thérèse's body, and in her wind-whipped garments – plays such a crucial and compelling role.  It is one of the most joyfully evocative dance-related images in photography.  It also possesses the undeniable glamour that would become the hallmark of the magazine work Steichen would begin for Condé Nast the following year.

This image was first reproduced in the June 1923 issue of Vanity Fair, with a caption provided by the poet Carl Sandburg.  It read in part, ‘Goat girl caught in the brambles . . . let it all burn in this wind fire, let the fire have it . . .'