PHOTOGRAPHS
Steiner, Ralph
U.S. (1899 - 1986)
Saratoga Coal Company
1929, printed 1977
Gelatin silver print
7 9/16 x 9 1/2 in. (19.2 x 24.1 cm) image size; 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4 cm) sheet size
Monsen Study Collection of Photography, gift of Joseph and Elaine Monsen
FA 91.25

In 1928, Ralph Steiner spent the summer at the Yaddo Foundation artist retreat in Saratoga Springs, New York. There he worked on a series he dubbed his “Ford car pictures” and a series of posters, billboards, and signs, particularly ads for Nehi soda. He returned frequently to this area over the next two years and created some of his most sophisticated compositions out of the patterns of local architecture and commerce.

Steiner’s career interweaves with significant moments in photography’s history. He studied photography in 1921 with Clarence White, a member of Alfred Stieglitz’s Photo- Secession circle. Afterwards he made photogravure plates at the Manhattan Photogravure Company, where Stieglitz’s journal Camera Work was printed, and then became a freelance advertising and magazine photographer. By the mid 1920s he had befriended Paul Strand who became a colleague and a touchstone for him. The two later worked on motion pictures together, including The Plow That Broke the Plains, Pare Lorentz's documentary film from 1936 about the dust bowl storms. After several years as a documentary and Hollywood filmmaker, Steiner returned to still photography in the 1950s and 1960s creating abstract shots of tree branches and other patterns in nature. Nonetheless, many historians consider his most significant work to be from the late 1920s when he was drawn to scenes with, as he describes, “strong textures” and “visual amusements” – images that a young Walker Evans carefully considered. -- Label copy for 150 Works of Art, October 1, 2005 to February 26, 2006.