A pioneer of photography and a key figure who helped establish the medium as part of the avant-garde of modernity in the early 20th century, Edward Steichen began experimenting with the possibilities of his art at a very early age. Fascinated by the variations of light in nature, he captured through his lens the reflections of the sky on water, the diffraction of shadows in foliage, and the colorful brilliance of flower petals. Playing with chiaroscuro like a painter, he casts a fresh eye on the plant world: his taste for experimenting with the photographic image echoed his passion for flower hybridization. As a horticulturist, the photographer cultivated his own varieties—he was particularly fond of delphiniums.

This book presents, for the first time, the unique relationship Steichen had with nature and the garden. Famous for his portraits, the photographer captured flowers, trees, and bouquets with the same care. It was in the garden, just as much as in the studio, that he honed his eye and developed his artistic practice. From the pictorialism of the famous platinum print The Flatiron, Evening, created in 1905 in New York, where the twilight hues of the city radiate, to the chromogenic prints of the 1950s that reveal the power of the colors of the Connecticut countryside, and including still lifes of bouquets of roses or sunflowers, Steichen’s images immerse us in atmospheres where light defines contours and infuses the air. Both the chromatic power and the intensity of the black-and-white images showcase nature in all its diversity, both wild and cultivated. For the photographer, the latter represents a vast field of exploration, as highlighted by the Luxembourg collections presented here: those of the National Museum of Archaeology, History, and Art, the Spuerkeess Foundation, and the City of Luxembourg Photo Library. Accompanied by texts from international photography historians, this visual corpus highlights, for the first time, the importance of the plant world in the aesthetic explorations of a great master of the 20th century.