John Steinbeck, a giant in the canon of American Literature came to Halsman’s NY studio in a dark mood on Dec 13, 1952. The J. Walter Thompson Ad Agency was doing a campaign for Ballantine Ale, and they hired Halsman to photograph Steinbeck for the Ad. Steinbeck told Halsman “I can’t stand cameras staring at me. I’m allergic to them. Don’t even try to take a good picture of me -nobody has.” It was 1952, and Steinbeck’s magnum opus _East of Eden_ had just been published. It topped The NY Times bestsellers list and three years later the film version of the novel would star James Dean in his first film. Halsman tried to shift Steinbeck’s mood by asking him to jump. When he sat for the formal sitting he looked into the camera’s lens self-conscious and annoyed. Halsman, who stood behind the 4x5 twin lens camera with a black cloth covering his head, excelled at what he called “psychological portraiture,” and engaged Steinbeck in conversation about writing. Steinbeck became animated over the course of their discussion and began to look into the camera with a different expression, conversing with the camera as if it were Halsman himself. Halsman recounted at one point Steinbeck exclaimed “I can do it.” He had gotten over his phobia of looking at the camera, and Halsman remarked how Steinbeck’s self-consciousness had disappeared. This was the pinnacle of Steinbeck's career. He had started his journey in California’s Central Valley writing with sympathetic humor about the social plight of migrant workers and the underdogs of society, as well as the fate and injustice of the downtrodden and everyday protagonists. His books _Of Mice and Men_, and _The Grapes of Wrath_ propelled him to fame, and were turned into films. He won the Pulitzer Prize and the Presidential medal of freedom, but he always kept down to earth and defended the defenseless. 10 years after Halsman’s photo shoot Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, but there was a backlash against him, and he never published another novel. He died in 1968, and in 1979 (The 77th anniversary of Steinbeck’s birth) Halsman’s photograph of Steinbeck was chosen to be a US Postage stamp. Halsman’s portrait was used time and time again on book cover after book cover, immortalizing the moment where Steinbeck dropped his mask and allowed himself to be seen as he was.
