Le Tournesol (The Sunflower) by Edward Steichen

Portrait of Steichen with a Palette by an unknown photographer
Edward Steichen, Portrait of Steichen with Palette, 1901, photograph, George Eastman House, reproduced with permission of Joanna T. Steichen

Few people are aware that Edward Steichen, one of the foremost photographers of the twentieth century, was also a painter. In a career that spanned more than seven decades, Steichen pursued both photography and painting for over twenty years, exhibiting in New York and Paris. In the early 1920s, he made what seems a rash decision: he destroyed all the canvases in his possession and began to concentrate solely on photography. While many of his early soft-focus paintings survive, Le Tournesol is thought to be the only example in existence today of Steichen's hard-edged style.