Kunsthaus Zurich Shows Edward Steichen: In High Fashion

From 11 January to 30 March 2008 Kunsthaus Zurich will be offering a glimpse at an unknown facet of the work of the great 20th-century American photographer.

Forty years after the artist's death, original prints by Edward Steichen (1879-1973) for Vanity Fair and Vogue are only now available to the public.

In the 1920s and 1930s Steichen was at the height of his career as a photographer, and some of the images he created during that period for the magazines published by Conde Nast are among his most striking.

While Kunsthaus Zürich presents some 200 works under the theme of high fashion, the Musee de l'Elysee in Lausanne shows an overview of Steichen's entire career entitled "Lives in Photography".

Steichen had already made his name as a painter and art photographer on both sides of the Atlantic by the time he was offered the position in early 1923 that made him one of the best-known figures in commercial photography, as chief photographer for Conde Nast's influential Vogue and Vanity Fair magazines.

Over the next 15 years, Steichen brought all of his extraordinary talents to bear on the project of portraying contemporary culture and its foremost exponents, from the fields of literature, journalism, dance, sports, politics, theatre and film, and in particular from the world of haute couture.

The result was a grand oeuvre.