Monroe Gallery of Photography specializes in 20th- and 21st-century photojournalism and humanist imagery—images that are embedded in our collective consciousness and which form a shared visual heritage for human society. They set social and political changes in motion, transforming the way we live and think—in a shared medium that is a singular intersectionality of art and journalism.
— Sidney and Michelle Monroe
PHILADELPHIA, Miss. (WTOK) - The Mississippi Freedom Trail unveiled its newest marker in Philadelphia.
The marker is in remembrance of the Neshoba county murders of 1964 that featured three men, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, who were participating in an initiative to register black voters but were jailed and later killed by members of the KKK.
News 11 spoke to the mayor of Philadelphia James A. Young who said that it’s a reminder of the past and a marker showing a better future.
“I think it’s a great day. We remember it but when you have markers to remind you of some of the incidents that happened; we never need to forget our history, but as I said in the intro, we should not live in the past but never forget the past. It’s key. I mean every time people pass this marker, they’re gonna remember these guys lost their lives trying to get us registered to vote. So, we should vote every day.” said Mayor Young.
On June 15th, the Neshoba County Coalition will host a program that will honor the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer and remember the deaths of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner.
On June 21, 1964, voter registration volunteers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were arrested in Neshoba County, Mississippi following a traffic stop, escorted to the local jail, and held for a number of hours. As the three left town in their car, they were followed by law enforcement and their car was pulled over again. The three were abducted, driven to another location, and shot at close range. The bodies were buried in an earthen dam.
LIFE magazine sent Bill Eppridge to Mississippi immediately after the news broke – he had been covering Pete Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival. Several of Eppridge’s photographs from that time are featured in the exhibit "1964". Exhibits - 1964 - Monroe - Gallery of Photography (monroegallery.com)
Barbra Streisand in the dressing room of the Johnny Carson Show (The Tonight Show) January 1963. Photographer Bill Eppridge is standing behind her making a photograph of her reflected in the mirror. Life reporter Chris Welles is on the left behind Streisand.
Bill Eppridge and his Nikon camera chronicled some of the most important events of the second half of the 20th century, including his iconic photograph of a dying Robert F. Kennedy shortly after he was shot in 1968.
Eppridge, who lived in Connecticut, died in 2013 at the age of 75. Since then, his widow, Adrienne Aurichio, has been cataloging his enormous body of work — photographs, negatives and other correspondence dating from his earliest days as a photojournalist.
“There is so much history in there that he didn't want any of that to be lost,” Aurichio said. “There's every note card, every postcard someone sent him, memos from editors all about his work, he saved everything because he said, ‘This is part of my legacy, part of my archive that people will want to look at later.'"
Eppridge was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and lived in New Milford, Connecticut. But he grew up in Richmond, Virginia during segregation.
Aurichio reflected on those formative years.
“Something that stuck with him his whole life was seeing a white policeman get on a bus and make an elderly Black woman move because she was sitting in the front,” Aurichio said. “And he was with his good friend, they were maybe 10. And he said he never forgot that, you know, just the injustice of it.”
Aurichio said that sense of empathy and injustice is evident in all of his work, but especially when he was covering the Civil Rights Movement for Life Magazine in the 1960s.
She showed a picture she recently discovered in Eppridge’s archives, just one example of the historically significant photographs she continues to uncover. The black and white image is a closeup of a Black woman addressing a crowd. Aurichio is convinced the woman is civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, addressing the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Convention in 1964, which she co-founded.
Julianne Varacchi Connecticut Public Host Ray Hardman interviews Adrienne Aurichio in Danbury, Conn. for “Where ART Thou?” as they look at Bill Eppridge's photograph of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer from 1964. Aurichio is the widow and publishing collaborator of famed photojournalist Bill Eppridge. Adrienne and Bill moved to New Milford in 2004, where Adrienne still lives.
“I did some research and found her in some news photos,” Aurichio said. "She was wearing the same dress and she's at the convention and she's singing. And it was only a couple of days after Bill had photographed the funeral of James Chaney.”
James Chaney was one of three civil rights workers killed by the Ku Klux Klan in Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1964. Aurichio said some 60 years later, it’s still hard to believe that Eppridge, a young white photographer on assignment, actually went to the Chaney house and asked if he could stay with them in the midst of their grief and take pictures. They welcomed him in, and Eppridge captured a series of haunting pictures of James Chaney’s funeral for Life Magazine.
This “Fly on the Wall” approach worked well on another important assignment from earlier that year. In February 1964, Eppridge headed to JFK Airport to photograph a music group from Liverpool, England, called The Beatles, who were making their first trip to the U.S.
Aurichio said the assignment, which was only supposed to last a day, ended up lasting six days. Eppridge captured not only the youthful exuberance of the "Fab Four" on their first visit to the states, but also the fever pitch reactions of the hordes of fans fully in the throes of “Beatlemania.”
The Beatles with Ed Sullivan, February 8, 1964. New York City.
Eppridge continued to cover important assignments — Vietnam, revolutions in Central and South America, and Woodstock — but his defining moment as a photojournalist came while covering the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.
“When he first heard the gunshots, he knew instantly it was a gun, and he immediately pushed forward to try and see what had happened,” Aurichio said.
Kennedy was assassinated after addressing a crowd of supporters gathered at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Aurichio said Eppridge was one of the first to enter the hotel kitchen where Bobby Kennedy lay dying.
“It's somewhat extraordinary that he could make that picture,” Aurichio said. “So he had to have the wherewithal in a split second to say, ‘OK, I can't do much. There are other people closing in. What can I do as a photographer? This is history.’ And in his mind, he thought it really has to be documented because you don't want questions later, as there always are with JFK’s assassination.”
The photograph, that of a dying Kennedy laying in a circle of overhead light, his head cradled by a kitchen worker, is one of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century.
Aurichio said Eppridge never stopped taking photographs.
Even during his long bout with pancreatic cancer, Eppridge continued to be a “fly on the wall,” capturing the beauty and spontaneity of his subjects, just as he had done for decades.
Bill Eppridge's photographs are featured in the current "1964" exhibition though June 23, 2024. More of Eppridge's work may be found here.
Not to make anyone feel elderly, but the 1960s are now more than 60 years old.
That startling fact leaps to the fore when one considers Monroe Gallery of Photography’s newest exhibit, simply titled 1964. The gallery calls it the year the 1960s truly began, complete with inflection points such as the musical British Invasion, Muhammad Ali becoming the world heavyweight boxing champion, and the slayings of three civil rights workers in Mississippi.
Several images show fans in states of euphoria over seeing — or preparing to see — The Beatles. In Bill Eppridge’s The Beatles With Ed Sullivan, about a dozen men hold cameras to document the band’s every move. It’s not unlike fans in 2024 using cellphones for the same purpose. In Bob Gomel’s Black Muslim leader Malcolm X Photographing Cassius Clay, Ali hams it up, while the usually stoic civil rights figure grins behind the camera. In Eppridge’s Kent Courtney, National Chair of the Conservative Society of America, Courtney tightens his tie, cutting a powerful image of buttoned-up status quo conformity.
The gallery will host a talk with Amalie R. Rothschild, a filmmaker and photographer who has created documentaries about social issues, at 4:30 p.m. June 8. — B.S.
The most pivotal year of the 1960s, arguably, is 1964. That’s the year American culture fractured and eventually split along ideological lines — old vs. young; hip vs. square; poor vs. rich; liberal vs. conservative — establishing the poles of societal debate that are still raging today.
In 2020, a trove of nearly a thousand photographs taken by Paul McCartney on a 35mm camera was re-discovered in his archive. A new book has been published: "Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm", available in June 2023, and selected photographs from the book are on exhibit at The National Portrait Gallery in London. through October 1, 2023.
‘Millions of eyes were suddenly upon us, creating a picture I will never forget for the rest of my life.’ --Paul McCartney
Bill Eppridge was at John F. Kennedy airport on February 7, 1964 on assignment for Life magazine to cover The Beatles arrival at JFK airport. He was then invited to continue shooting in their room at the Plaza Hotel and during the days that followed, notably at the Ed Sullivan Show rehearsal and historic performance; in Central Park; on a train ride to Washington, D.C., for the concert at the Washington Coliseum; at the British embassy; and at their renowned performance at Carnegie Hall.
"One morning my boss said, 'Look, we've got a bunch of British musicians coming into town. They're called the Beatles. These were four very fine young gentlemen, and great fun to be around," Eppridge recalled. After he introduced himself to Ringo, who consulted with John, the group asked what he wanted them to do while being photographed for Life. "I'm not going to ask you to do a thing," was Eppridge's reply. "I just want to be here." --Bill Eppridge
In the hot and deadly summer of 1964, the nation’s eyes were riveted on Mississippi.
Over ten memorable weeks known as Freedom Summer, more than 700 student volunteers joined with organizers and local African Americans in an historic effort to shatter the foundations of white supremacy in Mississippi, the nation’s most segregated state. The summer was marked by sustained and deadly violence, including the notorious murders of three civil rights workers, countless beatings, the burning of thirty-five churches, and the bombing of seventy homes and community centers.
In the face of this violence, these organizers, volunteers, and Mississippians worked together to canvass for voter registration, create Freedom Schools, and establish an alternative challenge to the State Democratic Party — the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Borne of Freedom Summer, and in response to the challenges of registering voters directly within hostile Mississippi, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party registered its own voters outside of the discriminatory system, ultimately sending a delegation of 68 members to attend the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City to confront and unseat the all-white delegation.
Directed by award-winning documentary filmmaker and MacArthur "Genius" Fellow Stanley Nelson (Freedom Riders, The Murder of Emmett Till), FREEDOM SUMMER highlights an overlooked but essential element of the Civil Rights Movement: the patient and long-term efforts by both outside activists and local citizens in Mississippi to organize communities and register black voters — even in the face of intimidation, physical violence and death. The Freedom Summer story reminds us that the movement that ended segregation was far more complex than most of us know.
American Experience will broadcast the film this summer, which marks both the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer and the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's Shelby County v. Holder decision, which struck down key protections afforded by the landmark civil rights legislation borne of the political momentum generated by this historical movement — The Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Join the Bronx Documentary Center this Saturday, July 12, at 8:15 PM for Freedom Summer
Film by Emmy award-winner Stanley Nelson followed by panel discussion with veterans of the 1964 Freedom Rides. The event is part of the Bronx Documentary Center’s summer exhibition and program series, The 60s: Decade of Change.
Hot off the heels of When Cool Was King, Monroe Gallery of Photography unveils their latest, Bill Eppridge: 1964, a celebration of the LIFE magazine photographer who famously shadowed an unknown act in the US on February 1964, The Beatles.
Eppridge was at John F Kennedy airport on assignment for the mag. After consulting with John Lennon, Ringo Starr gave the OK to Eppridge to shadow the group for the next few days and exposed American masses to the British sensation.
“Bill never set pictures up; he liked to find pictures and make pictures that way,” Eppridge’s widow Adrienne Aurichio tells SFR.
Eppridge’s assignment was just to capture the Fab Four’s arrival. “But nobody expected what happened out there,” she says of the group of rabid fans, some 3,000 strong.
“Bill was somebody who actually did a lot of photo essays,” Aurichio continues. “He liked to do stories in-depth, which is why he stayed with The Beatles for six days.”
The photographer’s gumption paid off and resulted in iconic shots like the group hanging out inside their room at the Plaza Hotel, practicing for their career-making debut on The Ed Sullivan Show and later performing at Carnegie Hall.
Those shots are now immortalized in the book The Beatles: Six Days that Changed the World, which Aurichio edited before her husband’s untimely death in October of last year.
Aurichio presents and signs the book at the art opening this Friday.
“When he saw things happening, he would just follow the story,” she says of her late husband’s approach. “He would try and tell the story as if he were describing it to you and you as a writer would write it. He wanted to show you the story in his pictures, so he would methodically go about it.”
John Lennon on the train to New York after the Beatles' concert at
Washington Coliseum, Feb. 11, 1964
Astonishing, richly spontaneous, and almost entirely unpublished images of the Beatles’ historic first trip to the United States, as chronicled by award-winning LIFE photographer Bill Eppridge given unique access to their tour. Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles’ first visit to the United States, this rare and mostly unseen collection of photographs marks the beginning of the British Invasion. In February 1964, photographer Bill Eppridge was on assignment for Life magazine to cover the band’s arrival at JFK airport. He was then invited to continue shooting in their room at the Plaza Hotel and during the days that followed, notably at the Ed Sullivan Show rehearsal and historic performance; in Central Park; on a train ride to Washington, D.C., for the concert at the Washington Coliseum; at the British embassy; and at their renowned performance at Carnegie Hall. The book is an intimate fly-on-the-wall account of a visit that introduced the Beatles to America and changed the course of music, internationalizing the industry and opening the door for other artists to achieve global success.
On Thursday, April 10, there will be a special book signing with Bill Eppridge's wife and editor, Adrienne Aurichio, of Six Days that Changed the World. The book was created before Mr. Eppridge died in 2013, and was published posthumously. Please join us in Booth #421, Monroe Gallery of Photography, from 4 - 6 PM.
From April 25 through June 22, the exhibition Bill Eppridge: 1964 will be on view at Monroe Gallery of Photography.
Saturday, April 5 - Sunday, August 17, 2014 Open during regular museum hours
Included in regular museum admision; $5.00 for Special Exhibit ONLY
ON SALE: Tickets by phone: 1-800-745-3000
4/5/2014 10:00 AM
Never-seen photographs shot by LIFE photographer Bill Eppridge as he spent six days photographing the young pop stars during their first visit to the U.S., and their performances on the Ed Sullivan Show. The exhibit will also feature an amazing collection of albums, posters, figurines, pins, fan club ephemera, and collectibles as it explores the idea of fan devotion and Beatlemania.
Many of Eppridge's Beatles photographs will be on exhibit during The AIPAD Photography Show April 10 -13 in Booth #421, Monroe Gallery of Photography. On Thursday, April 10, there will be a special book signing with Bill Eppridge's wife and editor, Adrienne Aurichio, of Six Days that Changed the World. The book was created
before Mr. Eppridge died in 2013, and was published posthumously.
From April 25 through June 22, the exhibition Bill Eppridge: 1964 will be on view at Monroe Gallery of Photography.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first visit to the United States.
"One morning my boss said, 'Look, we've got a bunch of British musicians coming into town. They're called the Beatles.'" Bill Eppridge was at John F. Kennedy airport on February 7, 1964 for the arrival of The Beatles. He continued to photograph The Beatles that day, and over the next several days. He was invited to come up to their room at the Plaza Hotel and "stick with them." "These were four very fine young gentlemen, and great fun to be around," Eppridge recalled. After he introduced himself to Ringo, who consulted with John, the group asked what he wanted them to do while being photographed for Life. "I'm not going to ask you to do a thing," was Eppridge's reply. "I just want to be here." --Bill Eppridge (Read more from the New York Times Lens Blog here.)
Astonishing, richly spontaneous, and almost entirely unpublished images of the Beatles’ historic first trip to the United States, as chronicled by an
award-winning photographer given unique access to their tour. Published to
coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles’ first visit to the United
States, this rare and mostly unseen collection of photographs marks the
beginning of the British Invasion. In February 1964, photographer Bill Eppridge
was on assignment for Life magazine to cover the band’s arrival at JFK airport.
He was then invited to continue shooting in their room at the Plaza Hotel and
during the days that followed, notably at the Ed Sullivan Show rehearsal and
historic performance; in Central Park; on a train ride to Washington, D.C., for
the concert at the Washington Coliseum; at the British embassy; and at their
renowned performance at Carnegie Hall. The book is an intimate fly-on-the-wall
account of a visit that introduced the Beatles to America and changed the course
of music, internationalizing the industry and opening the door for other artists
to achieve global success.
Bill Eppridge completed the book with his wife and editor Adrienne Aurichio just before his untimely death in October, 2013. Bill Eppridge's photographs of the Beatles 1964 trip will be featured in the exhibition "Bill Eppridge: 1964", April 25 - June 22 at Monroe Gallery of Photography. The exhibit includes other landmark stories Eppridge covered that year: The 1964 Newport Folk Festival, "Mississippi Burning": the funeral of James Chaney, and Needle Park.
Monroe Gallery of Photography will exhibit Bill Eppridge's photographs in booth #421 during the AIPAD Photography Show in New York April 10 - 13.
Copies of "The Beatles: Six Day That Changed the World" signed by Adrienne Aurichio are available from the gallery.
50 years after JFK’s assassination, LIFE.com presents the story of how an editor named Richard Stolley flew straight to Dallas from Los Angeles within hours of the assassination; how he tracked down Zapruder; how he purchased the film for LIFE magazine — and what all of that ultimately came to mean for LIFE, for Zapruder, for Stolley himself and for the nation, then and now.
Having flown from L.A. that afternoon, Stolley was in his hotel in Dallas just hours after the president was shot, “when I got a phone call from a LIFE freelancer in Dallas named Patsy Swank,” Stolley remembers, “and the news she had was absolutely electrifying. She said that a businessman had taken an eight-millimeter camera out to Dealey Plaza and photographed the assassination. I said, ‘What’s his name?’ She said, ‘[The reporter who told her the news] didn’t spell it out, but I’ll tell you how he pronounced it. It was Zapruder.’
“I picked up the Dallas phone book and literally ran my finger down the Z’s, and it jumped out at me — the name spelled exactly the way Patsy had pronounced it. Zapruder, comma, Abraham
Richard Stolley will be signing copies of the new book "LIFE: The Day Kenedy Died" during the opening reception for "The LIFE Photographers" exhibition on November 29, 5 - 7 PM, at Monroe Gallery of Photography. The exhibition continues through January 24, 2014.
This morning National Public Radio did a piece on a new play, "One Night in Miami", the premise of which is that no one
knows where Malcolm X and Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) went after the February, 1964 fight in Miami
WE DO!
"The following day, bolstered by his mentor Malcom X, Clay stepped in front of a room of journalists to declare his conversion to the Nation of Islam. After fielding hostile questions, he voiced the words that would become his lifelong anthem and would forever change the world of sports: “I don’t have to be what you want me to be.”
Recently, Bob Gomel recalled: It was February 26, 1964 in a Miami restaurant after Clay won the
heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston. Howard Bingham, Ali's personal
photographer is seen at the far right above Ali. Clay's brother Rahaman
is seated to Cassius's left (only a fist is visible in the famous frame.) The
name and exact location of the restaurant are paled into insignificance.”
The Beatles exiting Pan Am Flight 101 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Feb. 7, 1964. The photograph, taken by Bill Eppridge, is included in the exhibit (Photo by Bill Eppridge. All rights reserved.)
The black and white photographs, taken for CBS television and LIFE magazine, recall the arrival of the Fab Four in New York, their historic appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show and much more.
Bill Eppridge, 75, of New Milford, Conn., a contract photographer for LIFE magazine at the time, is responsible for 33 of the 84 photographs in the exhibit. He was initially assigned to cover The Beatles’ airport arrival on Feb. 7, 1964. Instead, he photographed and chronicled their first six days in America.
When Eppridge arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport, he knew that long-haired musicians from England “who have caused a bit of a stir” were about to land.
“I thought this would be ‘four guys getting off a plane,’ but it turned out to be so much more,” Eppridge recalled. “Half of the New York photographer news corps was out there.”
Many members of the press expected a surly, possibly drugged out, rock’n’roll quartet to stumble off Pan Am Flight 101, but were instead charmed by The Beatles, he said.
“They were perfect gentlemen. These guys were laughing, smiling and treating the press with respect – perhaps deserved, perhaps not,” Eppridge said. “They were perfectly synchronized. One could start a sentence and the other could finish it. These guys were intelligent and they had control of the situation.”
He added, “There was something going on. I could feel it.”
Eppridge immediately called Richard Pollard, director of photography at LIFE, and offered to photograph The Beatles at the Plaza Hotel, Ed Sullivan show, Carnegie Hall performance and train trip to a Washington, D.C. concert
Unlike today when photographers typically deal with agents and handlers, Eppridge spoke directly with The Beatles.
Ringo Starr asked of him, “All right Mr. LIFE photographer, what can we do for you?”
“I told him, ‘Mr. Starr, just be yourselves and this will be painless,’” Eppridge responded.
A classical music aficionado, Eppridge experienced a Beatlemaniac’s fondest dream by witnessing the band’s first U.S. performances at CBS-TV Studio 50 (now the Ed Sullivan Theater), Carnegie Hall and the Washington D.C. Coliseum.
“The teenyboppers, the little girls, were just out of their minds. You couldn’t hear yourself from the screaming. You couldn’t hear the music at the concerts,” Eppridge said. “It was wonderfully crazy.”
Eppridge’s negatives went missing for several years before making their way back to him 1994. He is planning a book of his Beatles photography next year.
“As time goes by, you come away with a greater realization of what you have done,” Eppridge said.
While Eppridge never photographed the Fab Four again, he captured other historic moments for LIFE, National Geographic and Sports Illustrated.
He followed Robert F. Kennedy in the months leading up to his assassination on June 5, 1968 in Los Angeles.
Eppridge said he and other journalists viewed Kennedy as “totally reckless” for failing to take stringent security precautions in the wake of his brother’s assassination nearly five years earlier.
Eppridge said he was standing 12 feet behind Kennedy when the fatal shots rang out.
“Having been in Vietnam, I knew what incoming sounded like. The only thing I was wrong about was that I thought it was .25 caliber and it was .22,” Eppridge recalled.
Eppridge photographed the slain presidential candidate on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel.
“You operate on instinct. You do what you have to do,” he said. “You don’t even think about crying. I cried later.”
________
Bill Eppridge will share reflections on his memorable career at the D’Amour Museum on April 21 at 2 p.m.
IF YOU GO
Exhibit: “The Beatles! Backstage and Behind the Scenes” When: Tuesday through June 2 Where: Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts in Springfield Cost: Adults, $15; seniors and college students, $10; ages 3 to 17 year, $8; ages 2 and under and museum members, free. Admission includes all four Springfield Museums. Springfield residents receive free general admission with proof of address For more info: Call (413) 263-6800 or online at springfieldmuseums.org
Bill Eppridge will be in atendance during the AIPAD Photography Show in New York at Monroe Gallery of Photography, Booth #419, April 2 - 7, 2013.
