Artwork Page for Ham and Eggs

Details / Information for Ham and Eggs

Ham and Eggs

1929 (printed 1945)

Ralph Steiner

(American, 1899–1986)
Culture
America
Medium
gelatin silver contact print
Measurements
Paper: 20.4 x 25.4 cm (8 1/16 x 10 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Therese and Murray Weiss 2012.75
Copyright
© Estate of Ralph Steiner
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
Not on view
Print

Description

Like many of the significant photographers of the 1930s, Steiner studied at the Clarence White School of Photography in New York in the 1920s. Other alumni in this exhibition include Paul Outerbridge, Dorothea Lange, Doris Ulmann, and Margaret Bourke-White. The school spread the doctrine of modernist photography, and was the main conduit for its introduction into American advertising. Guest lecturers included Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Paul Strand. These avant-garde visual strategies found their way, through pupils like Steiner, into American homes via the pages of popular magazines such as Ladies’ Home Journal, Fortune, and Life.
A vertically oriented gelatin silver print reveals a centered, round white plate holding three circular slices of ham topped with fried eggs. Surrounding the plate, dozens of whole, uncracked eggs are arranged in a rhythmic, repeating grid across a flat surface. Strong lighting from our upper left causes each egg to cast a dark, oval shadow toward our bottom right, creating a stark arrangement of highlights and shadows.

Ham and Eggs

1929 (printed 1945)

Ralph Steiner

(American, 1899–1986)
America

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