A Life in Photography
Citation
Steichen, Edward. A Life in Photography. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art, 1963. 294 pp. (A reprint edition was issued by Bonanza Books / Crown Publishers, New York, 1984; ISBN 0517468050. LCCN 84025434. OCLC-held item — OpenLibrary work OL120421W.)
Relevance
Steichen’s own account of his photographic career, written after his retirement from MoMA (which Wikipedia records as announced in 1961). As a first-person primary source, this is Tier 1: it is the autobiographical record of the curator who conceived, assembled, and directed The Family of Man. Relevant for: his account of the exhibition’s concept and selection process; the world tour (which he oversaw during 1955–1962); his view of the USIA partnership; and his self-positioning relative to critics of the exhibition’s humanist ideology. The 1963 publication date places it within a year of the end of his MoMA directorship, making it the closest contemporaneous self-assessment.
Key excerpts / pages
- No interior text was accessible in this session. The archive.org item (
lifeinphotograph0000stei) is access-restricted (print-disabled / borrowable only); the 1984 Bonanza Books reprint scan is also behind an access wall. No pages were read directly.
Notes
- Fetched 2026-04-29:
https://archive.org/details/lifeinphotograph0000steireturned metadata confirming title, author, original publisher (Doubleday / MoMA, 1963), and reprint publisher (Bonanza Books / Crown, 1984). The item is access-restricted; interior text was not read this session. - Fetched 2026-04-29:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Steichenconfirms: “Steichen, Edward (1963), A Life in Photography, Doubleday, in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art.” Also confirms Steichen served as Director of the Department of Photography at MoMA from 1947 to 1961 and announced his retirement in 1961. - Flagged
verified: falsebecause no interior pages were read — the URL points to the confirmed archive.org catalog record, but specific quotations from the text itself cannot be added until the book is directly accessed (physical copy or an unrestricted scan). - The 1984 Bonanza Books edition is a page-for-page reprint of the 1963 Doubleday first edition; content is the same. For citation precision, the 1963 Doubleday first edition is canonical.
- Cross-references:
src-moma-1955-catalog,src-barthes-1957. This book is the primary rejoinder to Barthes’s critique — Steichen’s own framing of the exhibition’s aims.