In Exaltation of Flowers
A joint exhibition at the Mennello Museum of American Art and Orlando Museum of Art showcases photographs and a rare large-scale mural by Edward Steichen
Edward Steichen (1879-1973) bought a second-hand camera in 1895 and began to teach himself photography. He was also studying painting, and his early photographs fit into the pictorialist movement of the day that strove to elevate photography to the level of painting. He was an aerial cameraman during World War I and, after the war, returned to painting at his home in France.there, he also pursued his passion for gardening. He wrote,“one morning, when I went to my studio, I found a very free copy of a flower painting I had been working on. It had been done by the gardener, a Brittany peasant, and it had the curious charm and direct simplicity of much primitive painting. As such, it was better than what I had been trying to do.
“I called the gardener, and we pulled all the paintings out of my studio into an open area and made a bonfire. I was through with painting.”
He later had a lucrative career producing fashion photography for Condé Nast publications.today, his photographs are in museums throughout the world.
Early in his painting career his friend Agnes Ernst married Eugene Meyer who would later become publisher of the Washington Post.the couple commissioned Steichen to produce a 10-foot-high, seven-panel mural for a home they were building on
Park Avenue in New York. Steichen worked on the mural from 1911 to 1914.The panels, In Exaltation of Flowers, feature flowers from his French garden and models from among his circle of creative friends.the Meyers experienced a downturn in their
financial situation and sold the house before the panels could be installed. They were exhibited briefly at a Newyork gallery in 1915 and individual panels have gone on view over the years.the paintings were left to the Museum of Modern Art, which later sold them to Alice Walton, creator of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.walton founded Art Bridges in 2017 “to share outstanding works of American art with those that have limited access to our country’s most meaningful works. The mission is achieved by partnering
with institutions of all sizes on projects that deeply engage communities.”
The foundation has its own collection, separate from that of Crystal Bridges. Walton sent the rolled-up panels to the Dallas Museum of Art for conservation, and the museum exhibited them together in 2017 for the first time in 102 years.
Art Bridges has worked with the Mennello Museum of American Art (MMAA) and Orlando Museum of Art (OMA) to present the joint exhibition Edward Steichen: In Exaltation of
Flowers through January 12, 2020.The museums explain,“the seven-panel mural will be shown at OMA and 20 photographs from the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, George Eastman Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be presented at the MMAA.THE two presentations together explore the important relationship between the artist’s painting and his early photography and give an in-depth look at the world in which Steichen made his art.”
One of the panels shows Agnes Ernst Meyer herself. In Exaltation of Flowers, Clivia-fuchsia-hilium-henryi, as with all the panels, pairs the models with flowers associated with them.agnes had been dubbed “the Sun Girl” by Steichen and fellow photographer Alfred Stieglitz. At the time the painting was done, she was pregnant with her second child and moody. She told Steichen,“i am now your Eclipsed Sun-girl.”the artist painted an eclipse behind her head, one of many personal references he painted in the panels.the use of gold and silver leaf and the flowing floral forms recall both symbolism and art nouveau.
Twenty of the artist’s early pictorialist photographs and his later fashion photographs are being shown at the Mennello Museum.among them is Gloria Swanson, 1924, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is from a sitting for Vogue. Steichen recalled,“the day I made the picture, Gloria Swanson and I had a long session, with many changes of costume and different lighting effects. At the end of the session, I took a piece of black lace veil and hung it in front of her face. She recognized the idea at once. Her eyes dilated, and her look was that of a leopardess lurking behind leafy shrubbery, watching her prey.you don’t have to explain things to a dynamic and intelligent personality like Miss Swanson. Her mind works swiftly and intuitively.”