Edward Steichen - Photographs New York Friday, April 5, 2024 | Phillips
  • Steichen’s deftly composed study of a Mourning Cloak butterfly perched amidst the blossoms of the Cosmos plant was almost certainly made at the time the photographer executed his more ominous Diagram of Doom series, in which the same type of butterfly is surrounded by looming shadows. Steichen was an avid and expert gardener and would have been familiar with the Mourning Cloak, a widely distributed butterfly in North America.

     

    This photograph was originally given by Edward Steichen to poet, journalist, and Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg. Steichen was introduced to Sandburg by his sister Lilian in 1907 on the Steichen family’s farm in Wisconsin. The two young men shared an intensity of interest in their respective fields, as well as a belief in finding an artistic voice that was distinctly American yet also emphatically new. Sandburg and Lilian Steichen married in 1908, thus cementing the personal and professional ties between the writer and photographer, ushering in a decades-long period of mutual creativity. Sandburg was a frequent subject for Steichen’s lens, and Steichen designed the jacket for Sandburg’s first book of poems. In 1929, Sandburg published Steichen The Photographer, a limited edition retrospective monograph. The two collaborated on a number of photography-related projects including the wartime Museum of Modern Art exhibition, Road to Victory. Throughout their lives, the two maintained a friendship characterized by a deep admiration of the work of the other. 

    • Provenance

      The photographer to Carl Sandburg
      By descent to Helga Sandburg

368

Untitled (Mourning Cloak Butterfly on Cosmos)

1920s
Gelatin silver print.
7 5/8 x 9 1/2 in. (19.4 x 24.1 cm)
Annotated ‘top’ in an unidentified hand in pencil on the verso.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$15,000 - 25,000 

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Sarah Krueger
Head of Department, Photographs
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Photographs

New York Auction 5 April 2024