The genius of Steidl?

Steidl was born to print, 60 years ago in the small German city of Göttingen, where his father worked nights cleaning the press at the local newspaper. The son skipped college and started his own printing company when he was 18. By 24 he was making multiples for the artist Joseph Beuys and publishing his first book of political nonfiction. Then he turned to fiction and, in the mid-’80s, to the vastly more complicated field of art and photography books, which remains both his specialty and his passion. Over the last 20 years, the imprint that bears his name has combined a boutique sensibility with a long and prestigious list, wide distribution and an immaculate reputation. The books are beautiful, the reproductions exquisite, and they issue forth from a small, crowded four-story building in Göttingen, about 100 yards from the house he was raised in. He’s never lived anywhere else.