Showing posts with label assassination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label assassination. Show all posts

Monday, June 4, 2018

BILL EPPRIDGE EXHIBIT FEATURES THE HISTORIC MASTER VINTAGE PRINT OF ROBERT KENNEDY SHOT



On the night of Senator Kennedy's assassination in Los Angeles, LIFE was closing that week's issue. Bill Eppridge’s negatives were processed in Los Angeles by J.R. Eyerman, and then flown to the Time Life lab in New York for printing. The printer was Carmine Ercolano, and he made only one master print for reproduction purposes. The negative was very thin, and the face of the busboy had to be airbrushed to bring out his features. The airbrushing is visible on the print, as are the pencil instructions along the bottom in the white border. This master print was later copied on a 4 x 5 camera, in the Time Life lab, and all future reproductions were made using a copy negative.

The master print was given to Bill Eppridge by Doris O'Neill, then the Director of the Time Life Picture Collection, shortly after LIFE magazine ceased weekly publication in 1972. Bill Eppridge was reluctant to display the print in his home in Laurel Canyon, and he placed it behind a sofa. Sometime later, a canyon fire destroyed his home. When Bill returned to the house to retrieve belongings, he found the print had burned around the edges, but had survived the fire.

Writing in Black & White magazine in September, 2008, photography appraiser Lorraine Anne Davis stated:

"An artifact is a human-made object that gives information about the culture of its creator and its users, and reflects their social behaviors. An icon, from the Greek "image", is a representation that is used, particularly in modern culture, as a symbol representing something of greater significance.

"Several 20th-century photographs have attained icon status but few are considered artifacts. One example is Bill Eppridge's damaged photograph of Bobby Kennedy as he lay wounded in a kitchen passageway in Los Angeles.

"But how does one value such an object? What comparables are appropriate? Would it be possible to compare it with the film footage shot by Abraham Zupruder that captured President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas in 1963? That film was deposited with the National Archives in 1978 by the family for safekeepimg. In 1992 a Federal law required all records of the assassination be transferred to the National Archives, passing ownership to the government. It acknowledged that the Zapruder family was entitled to reimbursement as owners of private property taken by the government for public use, but establishing the value was difficult. the case eventually went to arbitration, and a three-member panel awarded $16 million to the family, the highest amount ever paid for a historical artifact. One of the panel members disagreed - he thought that $3 - $5 million would have been more realistic, as the family had always controlled the licensing of images from the film. The issue lay with the value of the original film strip as a collectible object. Since there have been no documented sales of any other historically significant original film strips, the dissenting member of the panel felt the value was in the image and not in the film strip itself.

Like the film, the burned photograph belongs in a national museum - however, valuing it will be difficult because the event and the object are so emotionally charged that it will be difficult for any appraiser to remain dispassionate."


New York Times Lens: 50 Years Later, the Story Behind the Photos of Robert Kennedy’s Assassination




Bill Eppridge was one of the most accomplished photojournalists of the Twentieth Century and captured some of the most significant moments in American history: he covered wars, political campaigns, heroin addiction, the arrival of the Beatles in the United States, Vietnam, Woodstock, the summer and winter Olympics, and perhaps the most dramatic moment of his career - the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles. Over the last 60 years, his work appeared in numerous publications, including National Geographic, Life, and Sports Illustrated; and has been exhibited in museums throughout the world.

Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is honored to announce an extensive exhibition of more than 50 photographs by Bill Eppridge (1938 – 2013). The exhibit opens with a reception on Friday, June 29, from 5 - 7 PM with Eppridge’s wife and longtime collaborator Adrienne Aurichio in attendance; and continues through September 15, 2018.

A new book of Eppridge’s photographs, “Becoming Barbra”, presents a never-before-seen look at Barbra Streisand as she was becoming a star. From the humble beginnings of Barbra Streisand’s career in 1963 to full-fledged stardom in 1966, Eppridge had full access to the young singer. “This is the first book of Bill’s photographs that he did not live to see published … It took so long because many publishers didn’t want to publish the book without Barbra’s approval”, said Aurichio, who will be signing copies of the book during the opening reception.










Thursday, April 4, 2013

I Am A Man - Then, and Now

 


Demonstrators holds a sign and chant slogans outside of a Wendy's fast food restaurant, Thursday, April 4, 2013 in New York. New York City fast food workers plan a second job action day to press for higher wages.  (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

It's been 45 years since the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated during a sanitation strike in Memphis. Workers are still carrying on the civil rights leader's great struggle for economic justice today at waste facilities and fast food restaurants.

"Several pickets wore signs that said “I am a man” or “I am a woman,” echoing placards carried in Memphis in 1968."

Sanitation Workers assemble in front of Clayborn Temple for a solidarity march, Memphis, TN, March 28, 1968
 
 
Monroe Gallery of Photography is pleased to represent the Ernest C. Withers Collection. Please visit us in Booth #419 during the AIPAD Photography Show through April 7.
 


Sunday, November 18, 2012

Exhibition of new and definitive collection of Mark Shaw’s photographs of The Kennedys



Jackie Kennedy at John. F. Kennedy's Senate desk, 1959

Santa Fe--Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is pleased to announce a major exhibition of photographs by Mark Shaw, concurrent with the publication of the new book "The Kennedys". The exhibition opens with a public reception on Friday, November 23, from 5 - 7 PM. The exhibition of vintage and contemporary editions will continue through January 27, 2013.

 Published by Reel Art Press, this stunning new publication is the definitive collection of Mark Shaw’s renowned photographs of the Kennedys. Most of the photographs featured in the book and exhibition have never been seen before. Shaw first photographed the Kennedys in 1959 for Life magazine. He subsequently developed a close friendship with the family that gave him extraordinary and informal access to their inner circle. During the following four years, Shaw captured them at their most relaxed: in Nantucket, Hyannis Port, Jacqueline's family home in Merrywood, Virginia and on The Amalfi Coast with the Agnellis. On the campaign trail in West Virginia, pre-White House at their first proper family home in Georgetown and at the star-studded inauguration gala. He became the Kennedys’ unofficial family photographer and his captivating shots capture some of their most intimate and candid moments. Among the most memorable photographs must be the image that was JFK's personal favorite; the photograph he told his family and friends he liked best. Perhaps somewhat poignantly, as the 50th anniversary of the assassination approaches, it is the image of Kennedy walking alone in the sand dunes at Hyannis Port which resonates, alongside a later iconic and moving image of the rider-less horse and the fallen leader’s reversed riding boots.

Mark Shaw lived from 1922-1969. As a photographer he is perhaps best known for his images of Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy, however he was also a leading fashion photographer, Mark Shaw worked for Harper's Bazaar, Mademoiselle, and a host of other fashion magazines. He started working for LIFE magazine in 1952 and in 16 years shot 27 covers and almost 100 stories. Throughout the 1950's and 1960s' Mark Shaw shot the European fashion collections for LIFE, and was one of the first photographers to shoot fashion on the runways and "backstage" at the couture shows. Decades after his death, Mark Shaw’s photographs continue to be published regularly in books and magazines.
Among the many notable people Mark Shaw photographed were Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Brigitte Bardot, Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Melina Mercouri, Danny Kaye, Nico, Cary Grant, Pope Paul VI, Yves St. Laurent and Chanel.
 In his later years Mark Shaw also began filming commercials for television. He was the winner of many awards from the American TV commercial Festival for his work in commercials and from the Art Director's club for his earlier still work. Mark Shaw's Vanity Fair Lingerie and Chase Manhattan Bank's "Nest Egg" campaign are print advertising classics. Mark Shaw worked as a top print advertising photographer until his untimely death in 1969 at the age of 47. After his death, most of his work was hastily put into storage. All but a small number of photographs remained unseen for almost 30 years. In 1999, his only child, David Shaw, and David's wife, Juliet Cuming, moved the collection to Vermont, where they took on took on the job of creating the Mark Shaw Photographic Archive. In storage for almost 40 years, Mark Shaw's work is finally being unearthed, archived and made available for this exhibition.
 
Copies of the new book Mark Shaw: The Kennedys are available from the gallery  $75
Monroe Gallery of Photography was founded by Sidney S. Monroe and Michelle A. Monroe. Building on more than four decades of collective experience, the gallery specializes in classic black & white photography with an emphasis on humanist and photojournalist imagery. The gallery also represents a select group of contemporary and emerging photographers. Monroe Gallery was the recipient of the 2010 Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Excellence in Photojournalism.
Gallery hours are 10 to 6 Monday through Saturday, 11 to 5 Sunday. Admission is free. For further information, please call: 505.992.0800; or email.info@monroegallery.com

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Museum to open balcony where U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King was shot



Dr. Martin Luther King assassination, Memphis,Tenn., April 4, 1968; Photograph by Joseph Louw

WASHINGTON (AFP).- The motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee where US civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 is being opened to the public, a spokeswoman said Friday.

It is the first time that visitors to the erstwhile Lorraine Motel, now the National Civil Rights Museum, will be able to stand on the very spot outside Room 306 where King was gunned down by sniper James Earl Ray.

Connie Dyson, the museum's communications coordinator, said the upper-floor balcony will be open from November 19 as the historic landmark in downtown Memphis undergoes a $27 million facelift due to finish in early 2014.

"It is our most unique artifact, the balcony," Dyson told AFP by telephone.

"But with the entire Lorraine building being closed during renovations, we wanted to offer the public an access to the balcony and the room where Dr King stayed, since that was one of the highlights of the (pre-renovation) tour."

With its slightly disheveled bed, black dial-up telephone and unfinished cups of coffee, Room 306 has been left untouched since the evening when King, 39, was fatally shot at the height of the civil rights movement.

"Nobody's ever stayed in the room (since King's death). It's been a shrine ever since," Dyson said.

Visitors who until now could peer into Room 306 via a sealed glass window along the interior hallway will, during the renovations, "get a chance to peek... from the outside," Dyson added.

Ray, a white drifter with a criminal record, was convicted of shooting King with a rifle from a building across the street from the Lorraine. Sentenced to 99 years in prison, he died in April 1998 at the age of 70.

In October 2011 King became the first African American to be honored with a monument along the National Mall in Washington, engraved with words from his stirring 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech for racial equality.
 
 
 
Picture dated April 4, 1998 shows former Memphis sanitation workers Eugene Brown (L), James Jones (C), and Lafayette Shields (R) standing in front of the National Civil Rights Museum, the site where Martin Luther King was assassinated, after a memorial service for the late civil rights leader in Memphis. The motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee, where US civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 is being opened to the public, a spokeswoman said on November 2, 2012. It is the first time that visitors to the erstwhile Lorraine Motel, now the National Civil Rights Museum, will be able to stand on the very spot outside Room 306 where King was gunned down by sniper James Earl Ray. AFP PHOTO/FILES/Andrew CUTRARO.


via Artdaily.org
© 1994-2012 Agence France-Presse

Monday, October 1, 2012

Worcester Art Museum exhibition features some of the most powerful and provocative American photographs of the 1960s.




 Joseph Louw, South African, about 1945-2004, The Death of Martin Luther King, Jr., Lorraine Hotel, Memphis, April 4, 1968, Gelatin silver print, gift of David Davis, 2011.148

 Iconic news photographs of 1960s on view in exhibition at Worcester Art Museum

Via artdaily.org


WORCESTER, MASS.- Worcester Art Museum announces its major fall exhibition, Kennedy to Kent State: Images of a Generation, opened September 29 and on view through February 3, 2013. The exhibition features some of the most powerful and provocative American photographs of the 1960s.

The photographs chronicle world events during the turbulent decade of the 1960s. From disturbing assassinations, the Vietnam War, antiwar protests, the thrill of space exploration, and the lightheartedness of pop culture, this exhibition represents a range of human emotion. The photographs are from the museum’s permanent collection. The photographs were originally collected by David Davis, as a way to recall and reflect his memories of the era.

The photographs also reveal the activities of news gathering and publishing in the 1960s. Many are vintage wirephotos or file photographs from newspaper and magazine archives. These were used in editing, layout, and as camera art for the creation of printing plates. In the 1990s, when news outlets transformed their imaging libraries to digital formats, these objects were discarded or released onto the market. Many of the prints were stamped or inscribed on the back with a record of each use, and in this way they reveal their own history, and carry powerful qualities as artifacts.

“The Worcester Art Museum was among the very first American museums to exhibit photographs as works of fine art,” said Matthias Waschek, director. “In 1961, coincidentally the time that the Kennedy to Kent State era began, we established a curatorial department of photography and began building a permanent collection. These holdings now represent a survey of the history of photography in the United States in its fascinating variety. To the post-Baby Boomer generations, this exhibition has the power to awaken them to the correlation between their present lives and the not-so-distant past.”

Kennedy to Kent State: Images of a Generation was organized by David Acton, curator of prints, drawings, and photographs at the Worcester Art Museum. He has organized nearly 100 exhibitions at the museum, and published extensively on Old Master, American prints and drawings, and the history of photography. Notable among his exhibition catalogues are A Spectrum of Innovation: Color in American Printmaking 1890-1960, The Stamp of Impulse: Abstract Expressionist Prints, and Photography at the Worcester Art Museum: Keeping Shadows.

“Then, as now, pictures were the medium by which most people experienced the wider world,” said Acton. “Photographs created a common experience, plotting a historical arc of embracing familiarity. Kennedy to Kent State presents a selection of these pictures, providing a glimpse of that turbulent time. Many of the images transcend reportage. In their momentary imagery, refined compositions, and humanity, they attain the stature of true works of art.”

In 2000, David Davis founded the Schoolhouse Center for Art and Design, home to the Driskel Gallery of Photography, and the Silas Kenyon Gallery of Regional Art in Provincetown, Massachusetts. When Davis acquired the famous Vietnam photographs by Nick Ut and Eddie Adams, he began his 12-year project to collect a survey of the iconic images by which Americans experienced a transformative period of their history.

“I wished to do something that I have not seen before,” said Davis, “to present a kind of storyboard of the 1960s. From the time I entered my teen years until that of my college graduation, there were assassinations, an unpopular war, a trip to the moon and the rise of the protest movement and counterculture. It was a confusing, unsettling, exciting, and ‘far out’ time to grow up.”

Thursday, June 7, 2012

June 5, 1968: “How many people died because of that assassination?"

Via Conneticut Magazine


When the gunshots that mortally wounded Sen. Robert F. Kennedy rang out in a California hotel that fateful night 44 years ago, Life magazine photographer Bill Eppridge was right behind the Democratic presidential candidate. Eppridge didn’t panic or run; instead he did what he had risked his life to do in Vietnam—he took pictures and recorded history.

“I was about 12 feet behind [Kennedy] and I heard the shots start,” Eppridge says in the living room of the New Milford home he shares with his wife, Adrienne. In his 70s, Eppridge has dark hair and a deep, penetrating stare. When he talks about his days with Kennedy he speaks slowly and deliberately, as if he’s reliving each moment.

The assassination took place at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968. The shots were fired by 24-year-old Palestinian immigrant Sirhan Sirhan, and Eppridge himself was nearly hit by a stray bullet.

“One man [Paul Schrade], who was about four or five feet in front of me, standing directly in line with me and Sirhan, took a bullet in the head,” he says. Immediately, Eppridge began taking pictures. “One of the first thoughts that came to my mind was that JFK, when he had been shot, there were no still photographic records made of that. I thought now you’ve changed your job, you’re a historian.”

Among the photographs Eppridge took that night is the haunting image of a fallen Kennedy being cradled in the arms of Juan Romero, an Ambassador Hotel busboy who had shaken hands with the candidate just moments before. That powerful picture captured by Eppridge has become one of the enduring images of the assassination.
It was just that day that Kennedy had agreed to let Eppridge be a part of his immediate entourage for the night. Eppridge says that after making his speech, Kennedy left the hotel’s Embassy Room ballroom the same way he came into it—through the kitchen, despite the repeated protests of his lone bodyguard, William Barry. (It was only after the shooting that the Secret Service began protecting presidential candidates.)
“Barry knew the ropes and he knew that you don’t go out of a room the same way you came in,” Eppridge explains.

He had photographed Kennedy two years earlier and on the campaign trail they’d become friends, but at first Eppridge could not take time to grieve for his fallen friend. “After Frank Mankiewicz [Kennedy’s press secretary] announced that Bobby was gone, I went back to New York and met the plane there when they brought him in, photographed the funeral at St. Patrick’s, took that train ride to Washington, and then I cried,” he says.

If Kennedy hadn’t been murdered, Eppridge believes that history would have taken a vastly different course. “I don’t think people realize the significance of that assassination and what would have happened had he not been shot,” Eppridge says. He believes Kennedy would have became president instead of Republican Richard Nixon and would have ended the Vietnam War immediately—saving the lives of more than 20,000 American soldiers and tens of thousands of North and South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians.

“How many people died because of that assassination?” Eppridge asks. “That’s stuck with me, it bothers me.”

In addition to the tragic end of the Kennedy campaign, Eppridge covered many iconic moments in the 1960s for Life magazine, including the Beatles’ arrival in America in 1964 and the Woodstock music festival in 1969. In 2008, he compiled his photographs and wrote about his time with Kennedy in the book A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties.

Eppridge doesn’t subscribe to any of the many conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination, especially that there was a second gunman and more than eight shots fired that night.

“Somebody had supposedly taped 16 gunshots; there were not [16 shots],” he says. “I counted the number of shots and there were eight. So all this stuff about there being somebody else there shooting—no, there wasn’t.”

Besides security being light around the candidate, the campaign was very open, making Kennedy an easy target. Also, Sirhan is on record saying that he hated Kennedy because of his support of Israel.

“One plus one equals two sometimes,” Eppridge says. “I really think it was just one wacko, and a number of guys who were on that campaign have also said that, but you know, you can always be wrong. Always.”

Monday, April 4, 2011

APRIL 4, 1968: DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING ASSASSINATED


Dr. Martin Luther King assassination, Memphis,Tenn., April 4, 1968; Photograph by Joseph Louw
Joseph Louw:  Dr. Martin Luther King assassination, Memphis,Tenn., April 4, 1968


Martin Luther King Jr's Motel Room Hours After He Was Shot, Memphis, Tennessee 1968
Steve Schapiro: Martin Luther King Jr's Motel Room Hours After He Was Shot, Memphis, Tennessee 1968



Established in 1968 by Coretta Scott King, The King Center is the official, living memorial dedicated to the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Pictures, Letters, and Case Files of Martin Luther King Assassin Shown in Online Museum




James Earl Ray is being transported in Memphis, Tennessee this 1968 photo released by the Shelby County Register's office on March 31, 2011. A Memphis county official has opened an online museum of case files, personal correspondence and little-seen black-and-white images chronicling the jail time of James Earl Ray, who killed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. 43 years ago this Monday. REUTERS/Shelby County Register of Deeds.





By: Tim Ghianni
Via artdaily.org


NASHVILLE, TN (REUTERS).- A Memphis county official has opened an online museum of case files, personal correspondence and little-seen black-and-white images chronicling the jail time of James Earl Ray, who killed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. 43 years ago this Monday.

"This is not just an incredible part of Shelby County history and Tennessee history, but national and world history," said Tom Leatherwood, 54, Shelby County register of deeds.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down by Ray at the city's Lorraine Motel, sparking unrest across the country and an international manhunt for the killer.

The "museum" can be visited at register.shelby.tn.us. Scroll down below the "archives" section to find the "Martin Luther King Assassination Investigation" link, highlighted in small yellow print.

Making these mostly unseen images and documents available to the public is part of Leatherwood's effort to get the city's historical and genealogical records online and accessible.

One section of the site contains a mammoth batch of documents of the killer's legal proceedings Leatherwood found in 2007.

"I was walking through with a county archivist to try to organize and identify material. We saw this package and we turned it over and we saw 'James E. Ray,'" Leatherwood recalled. "That was a pretty exciting moment for someone who likes history and archives."

He says it took this long to make the records accessible because he needed to get permission from the public defender's office to post files detailing efforts by Ray's attorneys.

Memphis photographer Gil Michael, 77, was caught off-guard when he saw that the site contained photos of Ray that he took on the night he was booked.

Michael, then director of photography for the University of Memphis, was asked by the sheriff's office to volunteer his time and take pictures to be distributed to news outlets. "It wasn't feasible to have tons of media in there," said Michael, who Ray tried to kick as he was shooting a picture.

Michael has asked about the photos and the negatives over the years and was told no one could find them. Now that some are on display, he wonders if he has any legal claim to ownership and if the negatives are anywhere to be found. Michael said he is mainly interested in being credited for his work.

Leatherwood was in grade school at the time of the assassination, and remembers the turmoil.

"I remember the National Guard had been called out. There were soldiers with rifles and soldiers going around in Army trucks... " Leatherwood said. "It was a very tumultuous time."

Ray pleaded guilty, though he recanted and unsuccessfully fought to clear his name. He died in prison in 1998.

(Writing and reporting by Tim Ghianni; editing by Mary Wisniewski and Greg McCune)

Friday, February 18, 2011

February In History: Malcolm X Assassinated

Malcolm X Addressing Black Muslim Rally in Chicago, 1963
Gordon Parks: Malcolm X Addressing Black Muslim Rally in Chicago, 1963


After repeated attempts on his life, Malcolm rarely traveled anywhere without bodyguards. On February 14, 1965 the home where Malcolm, Betty and their four daughters lived in East Elmhurst, New York was firebombed. Luckily, the family escaped physical injury.


One week later, however, Malcolm's enemies were successful in their ruthless attempt. At a speaking engagement in the Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965 three gunmen rushed Malcolm onstage. They shot him 15 times at close range. The 39-year-old was pronounced dead on arrival at New York's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.


Cassius Clay and Malcolm X, Miami, 1964
Bob Gomel: Cassius Clay and Malcolm X, Miami, 1964

The Official Malcolm X Website