Photographing the Artist at Work: From Steichen to Namuth and Klein

The article traces the evolution of photographing artists at work, from early 20th-century portraits to dynamic action shots enabled by technical advances like the Leica (1926). Edward Steichen photographed Rodin with The Thinker (1902), Matisse at work (1909), and Brancusi (1910s). Hans Namuth's 1950 photos of Jackson Pollock at Springs, East Hampton, using a Rolleiflex without flash, captured Pollock absorbed in dripping, creating the iconic image of the action painter. Namuth later photographed Abstract Expressionists like De Kooning, Motherwell, Newman, Rothko, and Still for magazines. In 1960, Yves Klein hired Harry Shunk and Janos Kender to stage his Leap into the Void via photomontage. Salvador Dalí collaborated with Philippe Halsman from 1941, producing surreal images like Dalí Atomicus (1948). The article argues that such photographs became integral to the artwork itself, not merely documentation.