The Creaking Chair

Ralph Steiner was an American photographer and filmmaker whose work ranged from precisionist still lifes and industrial studies to documentary films exploring labor and social conditions. Active from the 1920s through the 1980s, he employed photography as both a formal investigation into geometry and light and a tool for social advocacy. His images of commonplace objects and urban landscapes demonstrated an austere aesthetic that influenced American modernist photography. He also directed and produced documentary films that engaged directly with political and economic themes of the mid-twentieth century.

Cleveland, OH, USA