A heads up here for New England photographers. I visited an exhibition of Steichens work at the Williams College of Art in Williamstown MA on Friday. By far the best display of his work I've ever seen. About 178 original prints done for Conde Naste from 1923 to 1937 mostly all of famous personalities of the time. Great one of Carl Sandburg, his brother in law that one sees reproduced often. The images of Bessie Love, in five images, doing the Charlston and the famous one of Richard Strauss stand out for me.

Another series of 58 works (from the Hollander family trust) dating from about 1902 to 1935 many in Pt/Pd but a number printed on silver gelatin in the 60's were shown in the same gallery area.

Finally a single wall of 25 silver gelatin originals used to illustrate the Walden Pond book published in 1936 was displayed with a copy of the book. The Walden Pond works were very insightful for me since I used to swim there as a kid when I lived in Concord.

The prints were all darker than I remembered but possibly some of that impression was due to the relatively dim lighting used in order to preserve the integrity of the prints. A very interesting video reproduction is there showing Steichen at work with his assistant in a rapid fire session using a 5X7 and 8X10 studio setup.

A helluva day considering I followed it with a Tanglewood concert with James Levine and the BSO complete with - what else - thunder, lightning and rain.

Nate Potter, Boston MA.