CM: Erich Hartmann made a series of portraits of the American writer John Steinbeck (1902-1968) in his Manhattan home in 1958. Steinbeck, noted for his portrayals of hard-working people and social themes, won the Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath in 1940, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 "...for his realistic as well as imaginative writings, distinguished by a sympathetic humor and a keen social perception." His works include Tortilla Flat (1935), Of Mice and Men (1937), The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Cannery Row (1937, published in 1945), East of Eden (1952), and Once There Was A War (1958).
Dating from 1958 Hartmann's pictures of Steinbeck must capture the proofs for his recently published book, Once There Was A War, Steinbeck's account of the Second World War, during which he was a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune.
