Born: March 27, 1879 in Luxemborg

Died: March 25, 1973 in Connecticut

Although born in Luxemborg, Steichen and his family immigrated to the United States when Edward was just two years old. At the age of 15, Steichen began a four- year apprenticeship with the American Fine Arts Company of Milwaukee. Ever since he was a child, he loved to draw. He independently studied painting and photography throughout the 1890's. But, he purchased his first camera in 1895, in a second-hand store near his work.

Three years later his photographs were accepted at the Second Philadelphia Salon of Pictorial Photography. He decided to study painting in Paris, but on his way there, in 1900, he stopped at New York to meet Alfred Stieglitz, America's most prominent photographer and leader of a movement to gain recognition for photography as a fine art,  called the "photo-secession". These photographers made the technique "Pictorialism" popular. This is manipulating negatives and prints to approximate the effects of drawings, etchings, and oil paintings.

During World War I Steichen was in command of all aerial photography of the American Expeditionary Force; he retired as lieutenant colonel in 1919. His experience with the intense technical demands of this work changed his view of photography, and after the war he replaced the symbolism of his earlier style with clarity and greater description.

He  settled in Voulangis, France. In 1922 he returned to America and a year later opened a commercial studio in New York, specializing in advertising photography. He advertised for Vanity Fair and Vogue magazines. At age 68 Steichen was named director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Of the many exhibitions he created, the largest and most famous one was "The Family of Man."

In 1962 he retired to his farm in West Redding, Connecticut. He stayed here until he died in 1973