"A nursing station in the Frost 19 unit, Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, Santa Fe, NM, December, 2020" was taken during a surge in Covid-10 cases, and was part of a series that resulted in a first place New Mexico Press Association award. View the full essay here in the Santa Fe New Mexican.
Via Committee to Protect Journalists
October 4, 2021
Journalists covering demonstrations against COVID-19 countermeasures have been called “terrorists,” “pedophiles,” “murderers,” and “scumbags.” Protesters have harassed and assaulted members of the press, and told them that “the nooses are ready.”
Threats like these have become increasingly familiar for reporters in Europe and the United States, where the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a CPJ partner, has recorded threats and assaults against reporters in cities including Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon.
September 30, 2021
4,882 photos taken over 30 hours. More than 670,000 flags representing American lives lost. An incalculable measure of grief.
Sunday, June 13, 2021
By Kathaleen Roberts
In a time ravaged by a pandemic, an insurrection and police killings of Black citizens, Monroe Gallery of Photography will show a series capturing it all.
For 20 years, the gallery has hung mainly historic photographs by such legends as Margaret Bourke-White, Harry Benson and Tony Vaccaro, although it has long included current work in its group shows. Past exhibits have paired Black Lives Matter images with photographs of the 1964 Selma March.
Opening June 18, “Present Tense” marks Monroe’s first multi-journalist exhibition of current news events during this epoch-changing era. It was time to pause the rush of virtual imagery with its storm of constantly flickering perceptions, gallery co-owner Michelle Monroe said.
Ashley Gilbertson. A mixture of tear gas discharged by police and fire extinguisher residue discharged by pro-Trump extremists hangs in the air of the Rotunda as the crowd milled about, Jan. 6, 2021. (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)
“This is a first,” she said. “It seems obvious to us that we are living in a completely unique history. The question of survivability is upon us. We wanted people to stand before this moment and stay with it.”
David Butow’s print of National Guardsmen sprawled across the U.S. Capitol floor after the Jan. 6 insurrection coincidentally captured the New Mexico statue of Po’Pay, the leader of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt.
During the pandemic, Butow also shot an image of a masked couple walking the Hoboken, New Jersey boardwalk with an ominous Manhattan skyline in the background.
David Butow. With the skyline of lower Manhattan in the background, a couple strolls the boardwalk in Hoboken, New Jersey, during the COVID-19 pandemic, April 18, 2020. (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)
The hazy light in Ashley Gilbertson’s image of the Capitol Rotunda reveals a chilling truth.
“Ashley said the air inside was filled with teargas, bear spray and the fire extinguishers they had carried in,” co-owner Sidney Monroe said.
Gilbertson’s shot of Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman frames him in a doorway beneath the raised hands of insurrectionists.
“To the left of him you can see the stairway that he led them through away from the Senate,” Michelle Monroe said. “It recalls the man standing in front of the tanks at Tiananmen Square” in 1989.
Ryan Vizzions. The Nation’s Capitol, Washington, D.C., Jan. 13, 2021. (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)
Gilbertson also captured the sense of desperation and despair in his photo of a food line in New York’s Chinatown during the pandemic.
Ryan Vizzions’ photo of the U.S. Capitol through its new fencing encapsulates the story of the insurrection’s aftermath. The photographer also shot an image of the late Civil Rights leader Sen. John Lewis marching in Atlanta.
Sanjay Suchak. The Graduate, Robert E. Lee Monument, Richmond, Virginia, June 8, 2020. (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)
Sanjay Suchak’s eerie photo of Charlottesville marchers at the University of Virginia Rotunda appears almost reverent until you realize they are white supremacists. Suchak also produced a compelling image of a college graduate giving a triumphant Black Power salute in front of a graffiti-scrawled Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia.
Sanjay Suchak. White Supremacists march at the Rotunda, Charlottesville, Virginia, Aug. 11, 2017. (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)
New Mexico photographer Gabriela Campos shot a scene closer to home when she photographed an Ohkay Owingeh dancer atop the empty platform where a statue of Don Juan de Oñate once stood in Rio Arriba County. She also cemented a picture of COVID-19 exhaustion in her portrait of a trio of masked nurses at Santa Fe’s St. Vincent Regional Medical Center.
“The impact and urgency of some of these photographs were immediately iconic,” Sidney Monroe said. “Sometimes it takes decades. We don’t need to wait a decade to look back.”
If you go
WHAT: “Present Tense”
WHERE: Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar Ave., Santa Fe
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily June 18 through Aug. 22
HOW MUCH: Free at 505-992-0800, monroegallery.com
Date: Monday, March 22, 2021
09:00–10:15AM EDT
Join NY Times Editor Renee Melides and VII Photographer Ashley Gilbertson to discuss “A City Ruptured” on March 22 at 9 AM EDT.
The duo will discuss their year of COVID-19 coverage in New York City, the concepts behind the work, the production of a months-long story, and the importance of collaboration on projects.
Renee Melides
Renee Melides is a Photo Editor at The New York Times and is currently based in New York. Renee also worked for The Times in both their London and Hong Kong bureaus. Prior to this, she was the Deputy Photo Editor at Monocle Magazine in London.
Ashley Gilbertson
Ashley Gilbertson is an Australian photographer and writer living in New York City widely recognized for his critical eye and unique approaches to social issues. Gilbertson is a member of the VII Agency, a frequent contributor to The New York Times, and a collaborator with the United Nations.
View the exhibition "History Now" featuring several of Ashley Gilbertson's photographs.
View a selection of Ashley Gilbertson's prints
March 10, 2021
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The New Mexican's Weekly Magazine of Arts, Entertainment, and Culture
November 20, 2020
By Jason Strykowski
Private First Class Tony Vaccaro, of the 83rd Infantry Division of the U.S. Army, taught himself to take photographs while under enemy fire. Deployed for 272 days in the Western Front during World War II, Vaccaro snapped 8,000 pictures. Many were of his fellow American soldiers. Others captured street scenes of war-torn France and Germany. “Bullets came right toward me, but somehow the one that kills never came about,” Vaccaro says. “I was scratched by bullets a few times, but I never had a bullet that injured me seriously.” Vaccaro survived the war to become a prolific and successful photographer.
“He’s among the most versatile photographers of his generation because he photographed war under live fire — European-style street photography — but, then fashion, storytelling, and documentary,” says the co-owner of Monroe Gallery, Sid Monroe. “He was game for any assignment.” Over time, Vaccaro would receive many.
To celebrate Vaccaro’s upcoming birthday, a new retrospective exhibition on his work opens at the Monroe Gallery on Friday, Nov. 20, called Tony Vaccaro at 98. To mark the occasion, the gallery holds a Zoom call with Vaccaro at 5:30 p.m. that day.
In April, Vaccaro fell ill with CoViD-19. He dismissed the illness as a mere “cough,” and doesn’t seem to be slowing down. As we spoke, he pointed out photographs in his Long Island City home and studio. All told, his archive holds hundreds of thousands of negatives, and the number keeps growing. He still goes out most days and captures the city using the same Leica he purchased in Germany 70 years ago.
Vaccaro was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, in 1922 and later moved to Italy following the death of his parents. He returned to the United States and was later drafted into the Army. Vaccaro already had his first camera and hoped to employ his skills for the Signal Corps, but he was told that he was too young. He reasoned that if he could squeeze a rifle trigger, he could squeeze a shutter button, but the Signal Corps was not convinced. Vaccaro was assigned to the infantry and brought his lightweight Argus C3 with him. (The little camera was often referred to as “the brick” for its rectangular shape.)
At the time, other war photographers moved slowly and carried bulky equipment. Often, they were forced to stage their pictures, reenacting important moments. Vaccaro, though, was a soldier first and photographer second. The fight was his priority, and he only took photos when he wasn’t forced to hold his rifle. When Vaccaro could shoot, he captured the brutal realties of war because he lived through them. “I shot from anywhere,” Vaccaro says. “From a foxhole. Standing up. Lying down. From the top of the trees. I would climb trees and take pictures there.”
There’s a powerful rawness to Vaccaro’s war photos. The black-andwhite images are steeped in contrast, not just between light and dark, but also between serenity and atrocity. “You have to be cold-blooded. You have to be a son of a bitch,” Vaccaro says of taking pictures during a war, in the documentary Underfire: The Untold Story of PFC Tony Vaccaro (2016). Although the scenes of warfare were tragic, Vaccaro put aside his feelings and acted as the consummate photographer.
His favorite photo, though, is one that depicts hope and love. The Kiss of Liberation features an American sergeant kneeling and kissing a small girl on the cheek in St. Briac, France, in 1944. The photo brims with compassion and perhaps pointed toward Vaccaro’s future in the medium.
“After the war, he decided to stick with photography because he knew he had an eye for it,” says Tony Vaccaro archives manager and Vaccaro’s daughter-in-law, Maria Vaccaro. “He signed up to work for a magazine run by the Army called Stars and Stripes, and he became one of the staffers.” Vaccaro, in his early 20s, purchased a used Army Jeep and traveled across Europe to document the recovering continent.
Vaccaro had the experience, skill, and, apparently the boldness to walk into the New York offices of Look and Life magazines to ask for a job. One of his photos, a dead solider buried in the snow, impressed an editor at the magazines, who asked Vaccaro if he could shoot celebrities with the same kind of vision. Vaccaro could, and would, for the next few decades.
Working freelance for Look, Vaccaro took portraits of Sophia Loren, President John F. Kennedy, Pablo Picasso, Enzo Ferrari, and Georgia O’Keeffe, among many others. As with his war photographs, Vaccaro’s portraits are present and of the moment. “He was absolutely charming. He was this suave, debonair Italian. He could talk his way into anything,” Monroe says. “There’s nothing between him and his subjects.” For Vaccaro, the people he photographed kept his mind off the atrocities of the war.
For almost four decades, Vaccaro worked as a freelance photographer all across the world. He traveled by camel up the Nile River and took a helicopter to the South Pole. Much of his war photography, though, remained unheralded until a 1998 exhibition laid the groundwork for a Taschen book called Entering Germany 1944-1949.
Six years ago, Vaccaro turned his negatives over his son Frank and daughter-in-law. All told, he documented the 20th century with more than a million negatives. “He kept everything in rolled-up paper in Kodak boxes,” Maria Vaccaro says. The family moved his studio to his apartment in Long Island City where they are working on the archives.
“When you’re a photographer, a serious photographer, you take chances, and you try to do the best you can,” Vaccaro says. “There was not another photographer better than me during the war.”
“I shot from anywhere. From a foxhole. Standing up. Lying down. From the top of the trees. I would climb trees and take pictures there.”
Monroe Gallery of Photography will be closed to visitors November 16 - November 30 under state mandated health orders. We are working remotely and are available online, via email and telephone.
Gallery operations will continue, with framing and shipping schedules unaffected.
"Tony Vaccaro at 98" is currently available for viewing on-line with a special short tribute video, please visit www.monroegallery.com
These procedures may change at any time based on updated guidance from the state. We appreciate your patience as we all navigate this difficult situation. We extend our concern and gratitude to our community, near and far.
UNDERFIRE: The Untold Story of Tony Vaccaro (trailer). from Cargo Film & Releasing on Vimeo.
Tony Vaccaro, nearing age 98, is is one of the few people alive who can claim to have survived the Battle of Normandy and COVID-19. A new exhibition, "Tony Vaccaro at 98", illustrates his will to live and advance the power of beauty in this life. The exhibit opens on-line and in the Gallery Friday, November 20.
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" I am almost 98 years of age and I walked to vote today. Please if I can do it, you can do it. We are all in this together America."- Tony Vaccaro Picture by Frank Vaccaro
"Tony Vaccaro at 98" will be on exhibit in the gallery and on-line at www.monroegallery.com November 20 - January 17, 2021. Drafted into WWII at age 21, he was on a boat heading toward Omaha Beach, six days after the first landings at Normandy. Denied access to the Signal Corps, Tony was determined to photograph the war, and had his portable 35mm Argus C-3 with him from the start. For the next 272 days he photographed his personal witness to the brutality of war.
After the war, Tony remained in Germany to photograph the rebuilding of the country for Stars And Stripes magazine. Returning to the US in 1950, Tony started his career as a commercial photographer, eventually working for virtually every major publication: Look, Life, Harper’s Bazaar, Town and Country, Newsweek, and many more. Tony went on to become one the most sought after photographers of his day.
As an antidote to man’s inhumanity, Tony focused his lens on those who gave of themselves: artists, writers, movie stars, and the beauty of fashion. By focusing on the splendor of life, Tony replaced the images of horror embedded in his eyes. Nearing his 98th birthday, Tony is recovered from COVID-19, and is is one of the few people alive who can claim to have survived the Battle of Normandy and COVID-19.
This exhibition illustrates his will to live and advance the power of beauty in this life.
