The Bitter Years celebrates some of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century and provides a whole new insight into Edward Steichen’s impact on the history of documentary photography.

The Great Depression of the 1930s was still a vivid memory in 1962 and The Bitter Years was the title of a seminal exhibition held that year at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, curated by Edward Steichen. 2012 marked its 50th anniversary. No proper catalogue was produced of the exhibition in 1962 so this book provides a unique opportunity to see all the photographs in a structure and sequence that reflect those devised by Steichen for the original show.

The exhibition featured more than 200 images by photographers who worked under the US Farm Security Administration (FSA) in 1935–41 as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal. The FSA, set up to combat rural poverty, included an ambitious photography project that launched many photographic careers, most notably those of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange.

The exhibition featured their work as well as that of ten other FSA photographers, including Ben Shahn, Carl Mydans and Arthur Rothstein. Their images are among the most remarkable in documentary photography – testimonies of a people in crisis, hit by the full force of economic turmoil and the effects of drought and dust storms.

This book is published in association with the Centre National de l’Audiovisuel and the Ministry of Culture in Luxembourg. It accompanies a permanent display at the Château d’Eau in Dudelange of the original exhibition, given by Steichen, who was born in Luxembourg. No proper catalogue was produced of the exhibition in 1962 so this book provides a unique opportunity to see all the photographs in a structure and sequence that reflect those devised by Steichen for the original show.

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'The Bitter Years' was a seminal exhibition curated by Edward Steichen in 1962 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The show featured 208 images by photographers who worked under the aegis of the US Farm Security Administration (FSA) in 1935-41 as part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.

The Great Depression of the 1930s defined a generation in modern American history and was still a vivid memory in 1962. The FSA, set up to combat rural poverty, included an ambitious photography project that launched many photographic careers, most notably those of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. The exhibition featured their work as well as that of ten other FSA photographers, including Ben Shahn, Carl Mydans, and Arthur Rothstein. Their images are among the most remarkable in documentary photography - testimonies of a people in crisis, hit by the full force of the economic turmoil and the effects of drought and dust storms.

'The Bitter Years' was the last exhibition curated by Steichen, who was not only a distinguished photographer in his own right, but also a celebrated director of the photography department at MoMa, in which role he had won international acclaim in 1955 for 'The Family of Man' exhibition.

Jean Back, Director of the Centre National de l'Audiovisuel, contributes an introduction to the book and the four essays by international writers and teachers on photography discuss the FSA, its place in the history of 20th-century photography and the continuing role of its archive, Steichen and the origins, impact and legacy of the exhibition, and its new location in Luxembourg.

About the Author:

Françoise Poos is a curator at the National Audio Visual Centre, Luxembourg. Ellen Handy is Chair of the Photography Department, City College of the City University, New York. Gabriel Bauret is the author of books on Colour Photography, Alexey Brodovitch and Peter Knapp. He has been artistic director of Le Mois de la Photo, Paris. Ariane Pollet wrote her doctorate at the University of Lausanne on Steichen’s work at MoMA, New York. Antoinette Lorang received her doctorate at the University of Heidelberg.

This book focuses from a chronological perspective on photography as a tool for a new visuality and the rupture of the role of the spectator: photographic exhibitions from 1928 to 1955, from the spaces designed by Lissitzky's to The Family of Man; the trajectory of utopian architectural-photographic space and from post-Revolutionary Russia to America during the Cold War. This space documents the exhibitions designed by Lissitzky (Pressa, Film und Foto, etc); German, Italian and Spanish exhibitions in the 1930s, and exhibitions in MOMA during the Second World War.

Edward Steichen was already a famous painter and photographer when, in 1923, he was offered one of the most prestigious and most lucrative positions in photography – that of chief photographer for Condé Nast’s Vogue and Vanity Fair.

Over the next fifteen years, Steichen produced an oeuvre of unequalled brilliance, dramatizing and glamorizing contemporary culture and its achievers – in politics, literature, journalism, dance, theatre, opera and, above all, the world of high fashion.

The 1920s and 1930s represent the high point in Edward Steichen’s photographic career, and the work he did for Condé Nast will stand forever among the most striking creations of 20th-century photography. The list of Steichen’s portraits is astounding in its range.

Steichen created a new style of fashion photography: his crisp, detailed, high-key style is a strong wind felt in the field to this day – George Hoyningen-Huene, Horst P. Horst, Richard Avedon, Robert Mapplethorpe and Bruce Weber are only his most illustrious descendants.

The Steichen archive at Condé Nast contains more than two thousand original vintage prints. A few of the images are well-known and indeed feature as iconic images in various histories of photography. Until now, however, no more than a handful of these prints has been exhibited or published.

Edward Steichen is unquestionably one of the most prolific, versatile, influential and controversial names in the history of photography. This is the most complete and wide-ranging volume on Steichen ever published.

Admired by many for his achievements as a fine-art photographer, he nevertheless impressed countless others with the force of his commercial work. Portraiture, the nude, fashion, landscape, cityscape, dance, theatre, war, advertising, still life and flower photography – no genre, it seems, went unexplored or unaffected by him.

Graphic design, typography and art direction were also fertile ground for Steichen and his curation of the exhibition The Family of Man – which attracted well over nine million visitors worldwide – was greatly admired.

This fine volume, published to accompany the first posthumous European retrospective exhibition of his work, traces Steichen’s career trajectory from his early Pictoralist beginnings to his time working with Condé Nast and Directorship at The Museum of Modern Art. See the New York Times's enthusiastic review of the show.

Hundreds of vintage photographs are accompanied by essays from a range of scholars who explore Steichen’s subjects and his legacy.

Includes a full bibliography and a chronology of his career.

Edward Steichen had the rare ability to turn his talents to almost all genres of photography with resounding success. Art and industry, fashion and beauty, celebrity portraits, landscapes and cityscapes, nudes and dancers – his legacy remains omnipresent. It was Steichen’s curious and inventive mind that made this diversity possible, as he ignored established dogma to carve out his own unique path. This book presents the best of his work from a career that spanned well over half a century.

PHOTOFILE brings together the best work of the world’s greatest photographers, in an attractive format and at an easily affordable price. Handsome and collectable, the books are produced to the highest standards. Each volume contains some sixty full-page reproductions printed in superb duotone, together with a critical introduction and a full bibliography. The series has been awarded the first annual prize for distinguished photographic books by the International Center of Photography, New York.