Steiner, Ralph
American (1899-1986)

DESCRIPTIVE TITLE: Ham & Eggs

1929 / print 1979
gelatin silver contact print
19.1 x 24.2 cm.
Museum Purchase: Charina Foundation Purchase Fund
96:0760:0001

NON-GEH NUMBER: E 4

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCE: Mulligan, Therese & Wooters, David. --Photography from 1839 to today: George Eastman House, Rochester, NY.-- Cologne: Taschen, 1999. p. 506.//

INSCRIPTION: recto-(on edge of negative) "E 4" verso-(in pencil) "neg. 1929/print 1979" (signed) "Ralph Steiner"

NOTES: Catalogued 1/97, DZ. "Ralph Steiner's photographic career spanned seven decades. While his earliest work showed an inclination for the romantic tonalism of pictorialism, Steiner by the 1920s, and under the tutelage of Clarence White, had absorbed the lessons of modernism. This image is one of his best regarded works from this period. It its formalism - the playful yet rule-driven arrangement of geometric form - this photograph demonstrates the modernist urge to create images, especially for advertising, that were at once inventive and eye-catching. It also betrays the influence of Art Deco and the predominance of well- considered design." [Therese Mulligan, 12/96] "The Ham & Eggs picture represented my revolt when a food editor of a woman's magazine set before my camera a plate of ragedly trimmed ham and two runny eggs. I ran out to buy six dozen eggs, induced the editor to trim both ham and eggs into perfect Euclidian circles, and made my version of that classic dish." [Ralph Steiner, --Prospectus for a Portfolio of Prints...--, 1976]

SUBJECT: study, ham & eggs