The intuitive lens of Lisl Steiner.

• Author: Bach, Caleb
• Position: Photojournalist Lisl Steiner

In her entrancing portraits, the Argentine photojournalist reveals the universal child

As a photojournalist, Lisl Steiner roamed the congested cities and remote outback of the Americas for over three decades, often on assignment for major publications like Time, Life, Newsweek, National Geographic, and the New York Times. She was there primarily to cover the big stories--elections, inaugurations, revolutions--and yes always found time to disappear into the back streets or the adjacent countryside to document the lives of children, "the world's most important resources," as she says. Steiner witnessed appalling poverty, ignorance, even treachery and yet, against this tragic back-drop of humankind's mismanagement of its affairs there would appear the forgiving face of a child: innocent, wise, resilient. For this photographer they were symbols of hope, promise, yet another chance to somehow do better.

Steiner's extended photo essay, "Children of the Americas," represents her sustained commitment to future generations of the Western Hemisphere. The project was launched in 1959 while Steiner was in Santiago, Chile, covering a conference of America foreign ministers for the Brazilian magazine O Cruzeiro. First she discussed her idea with Uruguay's Dr. Joss Mora (then secretary general of the Organization of American States), who agreed with her contention that the camera might be the best vehicle for focusing on both the promise and plight of children throughout the Americas. He gave Steiner's proposal unqualified support and what is more, she persuaded all twenty-one foreign ministers then in attendance to sign a written endorsement officially launching the undertaking. "It was one of those rare moments when everyone managed to agree on something," Steiner recalls with pride.

As Steiner began to collect her images--a Paraguayan child awash in a sea of hats, schoolgirls confronting a blackboard, shoeshine boys from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro looking for business on Copacabana Beach--she also sought out prominent people noted for their humanitarian concerns in hopes of gaining support for her work--Eleanor Roosevelt, Pablo Neruda, Louis Armstrong, Danny Kaye, Pablo Casals, Venezuelan president Romulo Betancourt, and Robert F. Kennedy among them.

She recalls with relish her encounter with Jorge Juis Borges, a three-day photo session for Time, which allowed Steiner to tell the Argentine writer about her project. "The first day he was having...