Early Inflatable Surf Mat

This is from a beachwear fashion shoot, 1925. Mat appears to be a thin, 7 pontoon, round nose design.

The photo is by Edward Steichen. Steichen (1879-1973) was a Luxembourgian American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. He began by studying pictorialist photography and his early work expressed the romanticism of the early 20th century with artful, dark, and foggy images of the countryside.