Ralph Steiner
1899-1986
Born in 1899 in Cleveland to a lower-class Czech family, Ralph Steiner studied chemical engineering at Dartmouth before starting his career in photography. In 1921 he began studying at the Clarence H. White School of Photography. One of his first jobs was to make illustrative plates for Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North and Steiner experimented in making his own avant-garde films, including H20 and Mechanical Principles. He continued his exploration with film and photography by attending the artists' colony in Yaddo, yet relied on advertising work for most of his income, submitting his work to periodicals such as The Ladies' Home Journal. In 1926 or 1927 he met Paul Strand in New York and became a founding member of the Film and Photo League. Steiner taught at the Harry Alan Potamkin Film School and was described by Samuel Brody as "the healthiest and most sincere artist in the 'avant-garde' of the bourgeois cinema and photo." 1 Agreeing with Leo Hurwitz's outlook on the aesthetics of documentary film, Steiner broke from the FPL to start Nykino. Believing it difficult to capture immediate events, especially with police intervention and time constraints, Steiner saw the limit…
Films