A Point of View.

Text and photographs by Ralph Steiner. Introduction by Willard Van Dyke.

Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT, 1978. 144 pp., 10x10¼".

"Ralph Steiner grew up photographically during the period when the artists using the medium were finding that they need not bend its qualities into imitations of etching, lithography, or painting. But while many of his contemporaries were still caught in the Pictorialist web, Steiner never stooped to sterile manipulation of his images. Instead his pictures glowed with the juxtaposition of rich blacks and luminous whites that a good photographer can coax from the latent silver image. Not that he was interested in the photograph for its own sake; on the contrary he was, and still is, only concerned with what the picture does, what it has to say. Whatever the message may be, however, it would be less clearly stated if Steiner were to be less meticulous in his use of photographic technique.

It was during the 1920s, formative years for Steiner, that modern photography began to be recognized as an art...

In the seventies photography has become a medium for artists, and photographs have become valued by collectors to a far greater extent than any of us imagined. Most of Steiner's great contemporaries - Stieglitz, Strand, Sheeler, Steichen, Weston - have left us, but Steiner still works as his craft, perfecting it and producing things of joy and affirmation of life."

— from the Introduction by Willard Van Dyke, 1978

This selection of the best of Steiner's work over fifty years includes an insightful autobiographical essay. Included are observations on personal darkroom techniques of Stieglitz and Steichen.

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