We know D.C. Get our free newsletter to stay in the know.

Unsubscribe any time.

MONDAY

Edward Steichen did not summarize; his seven-decade career in photography was too long and his methods too varied. The photographer (whose USS Carrier “Lexington”—Hellcat Goes Thundering off the Deck is pictured) delighted in process, using a wide range of darkroom and studio techniques to achieve painterly results. Throughout his career, Steichen’s color work was his glory. In his hands, color seemed to lightly touch and perfect what were fundamentally black-and-white images. His prints kept the full tonal range and sense of drama that lesser photographers often abandon for those seductive candy colors that RGB film allows. Tonight, Joanna Steichen, Edward Steichen’s third wife and widow—when they met, he was 80, she was 26, so yes, it was one of those relationships—will be speaking about her late husband and his work. During the 14 years of their marriage—Edward Steichen died in 1973—he shot little, so attendees hoping for information about his methods will be disappointed. But Joanna Steichen did work with her husband on a variety of academic and curatorial projects, including the book that followed the famous—though perhaps fatally earnest—”Family of Man” exhibition (that Edward regarded as the culmination of his career) and shared its title. In addition to the talk, Joanna Steichen will sign Steichen’s Legacy, her gloriously illustrated, but unfortunately organized, book about her husband: She breaks her husband’s work into often arbitrary groupings, giving readers little sense of the photographer’s changing concerns or development. The event begins at 7 p.m. Monday, May 7, at the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s Hammer Auditorium, 500 17th St. NW. $14. (202) 639-1770. (Jandos Rothstein)