This photograph by Man Ray (1890, Philadelphia – 1976, Paris) depicts a portrait of the celebrated photographer Edward Steichen (1879–1973). Steichen was also the curator of the celebrated exhibition, The Family of Man (1955), which toured to 37 seven countries before being acquired by the State of Luxembourg and being placed on permanent display at Clervaux Castle. Taken in 1947, it pictures Steichen in the year that he became director of the department of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York where the exhibition was first presented. Both men were prolific in portrait photography and knew each other from New York and Paris where they both lived and worked during the first part of the 20th Century. A significant contributor to the Dada and surrealist movements, Man Ray considered himself to be first and foremost a painter, whilst his photography was regularly published in magazines including Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair and Vogue, where Steichen’s images also appeared.