Description

This portrait of the artist and his wife on their honeymoon was made at a critical moment in Steichen's artistic development. Recently returned from two very successful years in Paris, where he had absorbed the tenets of Symbolism and the printing techniques of French Pictorialist photographers, Steichen was striving to establish himself as a society portraitist in New York. He was also playing a central role in shaping the ideas and program of Stieglitz's Photo-Secession. Steichen's graphically strong but moody landscapes and portraits were featured in the April 1903 issue of Stieglitz's Camera Work.