Ways of seeing place: Karel Steiner’s lens

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Karel Steiner brings his keen photographic eye to whatever land he happens to inhabit at the time. His exhibition, “Martha’s Vineyard and Beyond,” at the Chilmark library through July 18, reveals the sensitivity he brings to his art across genres and locations.

Born in Prague, Steiner explains, “My father was an amateur photographer, and that got me going.” At 16, he moved to the U.S., lived in Washington, D.C., and then, after Hamilton College, decided to become a commercial photographer, studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology. When Steiner opened his first commercial studio, he focused primarily on still life.

He then moved to Paris in the mid-1980s for love. Dividing his time between France and Prague, Steiner became a thriving international commercial photographer, and teacher at the Paris College of Art. 

He and his wife have been summering in Chilmark for 40 years. “I came to love this place,” says Steiner. “I’m a city person, but it’s nice to decompress and take it easy. When I’m here, I’m always taking pictures and looking for something special — not touristy pictures.”

Working seamlessly in landscape, city scenes, and portraiture, Steiner’s fine art is far from “touristy.” 

The show opens with pieces from Prague. The first, “Prague Gardens,” conveys the regal essence of the area’s historical architecture. Steiner places us up high, looking down at a curving path that sweeps our eye to the majestic 18th century Saint Nicholas Church in the background, with the midday sun playing off its façade. 

We travel next to Paris. Steiner captures a rare moment at the outdoor seating area of the Café des Officiers. Here, amid the tourists sipping their drinks, sit a group of officers who, regardless of the eatery’s name, rarely frequent the popular watering hole despite the proximity to their school nearby. “There was a group of military officers, so I put one and one together and came up with this picture,” he explains. 

Steiner selects black-and-white for “Eiffel Tower.” Taken from a nearby roof, we look straight out rather than up at the metal structure, surrounded to the right and left by old-fashioned metal television antennas. Seen together, the iconic tower is stripped of its iconic associations and becomes simply another intriguing visual element in this fascinating artistic abstract composition of line and shape.

Unsurprisingly, nature infuses many of Steiner’s Vineyard works. A black-and-white close-up of a rock wall zooms in close to a central stone, whose shape reminds the artist of Napoleon’s hat. He juxtaposes this intimate glance with a color photograph shot at a distance from a prone position of an enormous turtle-shape boulder on the beach. Placing us on eye level with the great terrapin, we notice every grain of sand, and the rough-hewn texture of the lumbering rock with the background swathe of blue, lightly clouded sky locking it into place.

Steiner created a remarkable composition of six cows grazing in a lush green field on Keith Farm amid a descending fog that seems to still the frame. Composed with just the topmost rocks of the stone fence running along the bottom of the image, the bovines form two rows of three, their white heads bent low, oblivious to — or perhaps performing for — the lens. “It’s quite romantic and almost picture-perfect,” he rightfully comments.

Steiner’s sense of humor comes through in other “picture-perfect” moments. In “Cloud Shapes,” by remarkable coincidence, the swirling and billowing white and gray clouds part to reveal clear blue sky in the iconic shape of the Vineyard. Next to it is another fortunate happenstance. Driving into town one day, Steiner took “Vineyard Haven Party Time,” in which a mannequin, staring into the distance, dressed in a bikini and orange shawl, sits limply on the edge of the veranda as though having just come in, worn out from a day at the beach. 

There is a tender sensitivity to “Father and Son.” Against a heavily clouded, early evening sky, a man reaches out from behind a low boulder on the beach to his son, sitting atop another boulder, sliding carefully down into his welcoming grasp — an emotional, parental moment, captured in silhouette and monotone blues and grays.

“Martha’s Vineyard and Beyond” is on view at the Chilmark Library through July 18. Artist reception on Saturday, July 13, from 3 to 4:30 pm. For more information, visit karelphoto.net or karelsteiner.com, or contact karelsteiner@yahoo.com or 508-645-9940.