Showing posts with label Life magazine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life magazine. Show all posts

Friday, March 1, 2024

Bob Gomel: Eyewitness at Alta Arts, Houston

 Via Alta Arts

March 1, 2024

Bob Gomel: Eyewitness Exhibition Opening Reception

March 7, 2024 - 6:30 pm - 9:00 pm

black and white photograph of Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) with Malcolm X leaning over his shoulder while at the victory party following his defeat of Sonny Liston, Miami, 1964


The triumphs and tragedies of the 1960s provided photographer Bob Gomel extraordinary opportunities to help advance American photojournalism. As the images in Eyewitness demonstrate, when history was made, Gomel often was there, making iconic and innovative images of world leaders and events, athletes and entertainers, and great moments in contemporary history — including President John F. Kennedy, the Beatles, Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, and Marilyn Monroe.

This exhibition, presented by Alta Arts and sponsored by the Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas at Austin, and in conjunction with the 2024 Fotofest Biennial, serves as a retrospective of Gomel’s work and includes photographs from his personal collection that are featured for the first time in a public showing.

Born in New York in 1933, Gomel earned a journalism degree from New York University in 1955 and then served as a U.S. Navy aviator. Gomel joined LIFE in 1959 and shot for the immensely popular magazine for a decade. He later freelanced for Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Fortune and Forbes magazines, and shot national advertising campaigns for Audi, Bulova, GTE, Merrill Lynch, and Shell Oil, among others.

Eyewitness also features selections from the Bob Gomel Photographic Archive, part of the extensive photographic holdings of the Briscoe Center. The center’s photojournalism archives have flourished over the past two decades into a renowned collection of national-level importance. Gomel’s archive at the Briscoe Center ranges from 1959 to 2014 and includes film negatives, contact sheets, and exhibit prints.


Curated by Bob Gomel.

Contact Monroe Gallery of Photography for fine art print information.


Installation team:  J.P. Zenturo Perez and Alexander Uribe of Alta Arts.

Alta Arts

5412 Ashbrook Drive

Houston TX 77081

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Greenwich Historical Society Exhibit Features 6 Women Photographers Whose Iconic Images for LIFE Magazine Helped Create Modern Journalism



Via Greenwich Free Press
February 29, 2024


Six pioneering women whose photographs for LIFE magazine skillfully captured events on a quickly evolving world stage will be the subject of Greenwich Historical Society’s new exhibition to debut March 6. These photographers enabled the public “to see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events,” as described by LIFE magazine founder and editor-in-chief Henry Luce.



black and white photograph of Billy Eckstine being adored by female fans,New York, 1949


Martha Holmes, photograph from “Mr. B.,” LIFE, April 24, 1950 © LIFE Picture Collection, Dotdash Meredith Corp. Martha Holmes began photographing for LIFE in 1944. On view in the exhibition are Holmes’s 1950 photographs of mixed-race singer Billy Eckstine, including one of Eckstine being embraced by a white fan—a provocative image that Holmes felt was one of her best because she felt that it “told just what the world should be like.” Henry Luce supported this opinion.


LIFE: Six Women Photographers features iconic images from these talented women who helped create modern photojournalism through their work as featured in the pages of LIFE magazine.

On view through July 7, 2024, the exhibition presents more than 70 photographs by Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971), Marie Hansen (1918-1969), Martha Holmes (1923-2006), Lisa Larsen (ca. 1925-1959), Nina Leen (ca. 1909-1995) and Hansel Mieth (1909-1998).

“We are thrilled to showcase the works of these talented photographers who were on the vanguard of a transformative change in how twentieth-century Americans received and understood global cultural and political events,” said Maggie Dimock, curator of exhibitions and collections at Greenwich Historical Society.

“This insightful exhibition offers a glimpse into how each of these remarkable women used their camera to capture topics that dominated American discourse through the last century, including U.S. industrial strength, the role of women and the family in modern American society, race relations, World War II, labor movements and the Cold War.”

A long-time Greenwich resident, Henry Luce (1898 – 1967) was convinced that American political, economic, and cultural power would, and should, dominate the era and that photojournalism, or “photo essays” as he coined them, could effectively shape America as an international power, inspiring its people, in his words, “to live and work and fight with vigor and enthusiasm.”

For decades, Americans saw the world through the lens of the photographers at LIFE, and the magazine’s innovative photo essays became the publication’s trademark.

Of the 101 photographers on staff at LIFE during the magazine’s run as a weekly, only six full-time photographers were women. LIFE: Six Women Photographers highlights the work of these photographers while providing insight into the process through which they worked with editors to create visual stories, through the inclusion of photographs, vintage prints, copy prints and contact sheets. Published and unpublished photographs along with select memos, correspondence and other items from Time Inc. records show the editing process behind the final, published stories.

“The topic will provide fascinating historical context to the enormous changes underway today in media,” said Greenwich Historical Society Executive Director and CEO Debra Mecky. “And it will enable us to further our mission to strengthen the community’s connection to our past, to each other and to our future. Henry Luce was a Greenwich resident during the time he was arguably the most influential media figure in the twentieth century and one of the country’s most prominent citizens.”

LIFE: Six Women Photographers has been organized by the New-York Historical Society. The exhibition is curated by Marilyn Satin Kushner, curator and head, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections; and Sarah Gordon, curatorial scholar in women’s history, Center for Women’s History; with Erin Levitsky, Ryerson University; and William J. Simmons, Andrew Mellon Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellow, Center for Women’s History. The New-York Historical Society holds the research archive of Time Inc., which was acquired by the Meredith Corporation (now Dotdash Meredith Corp.) in 2018.

A series of lectures, workshops and discussions, film screenings and other activity related to the exhibition will be presented by Greenwich Historical Society throughout the duration of the exhibition, beginning with two in March:

Women of Photos and Letters: Margaret Bourke-White, Clare Booth Luce and Annie Leibovitz
Thursday, March 14 from 6:00 – 7:00 pm


In honor of Women’s History Month, Louisa Iacurci of the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame will explore the inspiring histories of Hall of Fame inductees whose work and lives are intertwined with social advocacy and journalistic activism, including photographers Margaret Bourke-White and Annie Leibovitz and writer, journalist and politician Clare Booth Luce.

LIFE: Six Women Photographers: A Lecture with Curator Marilyn Satin Kushner

Thursday, March 21 from 6:00 – 7:00 pm

In an illustrated lecture, Dr. Marilyn Satin Kushner, Curator and Head of the Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections at New-York Historical Society, will expand on the curatorial process for LIFE: Six Women Photographers.

The full program schedule is available online: https://greenwichhistory.org/life-six-women-photographers/


Guided Gallery Tours:
Tours will be offered on select Sundays through June, from 1:00 – 1:30pm. Free with admission, participants will enjoy an in-depth docent-led discussion of LIFE: Six Women Photographers, that shares insightful interpretation of the photographs on view, and a modern perspective to understanding the complex social backdrop in which they would have originally been seen by magazine readers.

Dates: March 10, 24; April 7, 21; May 5, 19; June 2, 16, 30.

For more information: https://greenwichhistory.org/event/guided-gallery-tour/.

Woman and 2 childrenin fron of roadside sign "Entering New Deal Speed limit 25 mph", Montana, for LIFE magazine in 1936

Margaret Bourke-White, photograph from “Franklin Roosevelt’s Wild West,” LIFE, November 23, 1936 © LIFE Picture Collection, Dotdash Meredith Corp. Margaret Bourke-White became one of the first four staff photographers at LIFE in 1936.

This exhibition has been generously supported by Joyce B. Cowin, with additional support from Sara Lee Schupf, Jerry Speyer, Robert A.M. Stern and Northern Trust.

Support for this exhibition at the Greenwich Historical Society has been generously provided by Josie Merck and annual donors to the Greenwich Historic Trust.


 

Friday, October 27, 2023

BYU Museum of Art debuts new exhibit ‘Life: Six Women Photographers’

Via The Daily Universe

Oct. 26, 2023


BYU’s Museum of Art debuted its new exhibit “Life: Six Women Photographers” earlier this month, highlighting six influential women photographers’ work from the 1930s to the 1970s.

The exhibit features the work of photojournalists Margaret Bourke-White, Hansel Mieth, Marie Hansen, Nina Leen, Martha Holmes and Lisa Larsen.

Featured within the new installation are a variety of photos, such as Marie Hansen’s photo essay showcasing the 20th century Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, and Margaret Bourke-White’s photographs depicting the impact of the American economic depression on the people of the 1930s. Photographer Nina Leen highlights the work of women and mothers, while portraits of Hollywood personalities are featured in Martha Holmes’ photos of Billy Eckstine. Hansel Mieth’s photos focus on depicting the reality of labor forces and the experiences of the general public.

BYU students, local community members and visitors now have the opportunity to visit the Museum of Art’s new exhibit and appreciate the talent of these six female photojournalist pioneers.

“I think it’s cool that we’re honoring female photographers,” Sally Bradshaw, a BYU junior, said.

Bradshaw continued to describe the photos in the exhibit as “down to earth.”

“They capture very emotional moments, it seems. It’s pretty inspirational,” BYU student Logan Berry said.

Life Magazine, which ran weekly from 1883 to 1972 and monthly from 1978 to 2000, focused on showing “The Most Iconic Photographs of All Time,” according to Life Magazine‘s website.

The “Life: Six Women Photographers” exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art gives visitors the opportunity to witness for themselves the photographs of the six featured photographers. The exhibit displays photos both published and unpublished by Life.

“It’s like a crazy cool opportunity to be able to see these things that at one point were just in a magazine but are now really important,” BYU student Katy Turner said.

Turner continued to express interest in the past and future BYU Museum of Art photography shows because of the focus on important events.

“A lot of times we try to make it a focus and like a point to remember prominent women in history or maybe women in history who were amazing but we don’t really know about,” Bradshaw said. “I think it’s really cool that BYU wants to give a space to that because we’re all about honoring amazing people.”

“Life: Six Women Photographers” was organized by the New-York Historical Society and will be on display in the BYU Museum of Art until Feb. 3, 2024.

There will be a panel discussion discussing the exhibit and photography, art history and journalism on Thursday, Oct. 26 at the Museum of Art. BYU professors and faculty members Heather Belnap, Melissa Gibbs and Paul Adams will be presenting.

Museum of Art educator Liz Donakey will also host a gallery talk regarding the exhibit on Wednesday, Nov. 29.

Students can schedule a tour of the exhibit on the Museum of Art website.


Related exhibit: The LIFE Photographers

Friday, September 29, 2023

New Exhibit and Gallery Conversation: Bob Gomel - Classics

 BOB GOMEL: CLASSICS




Santa Fe--Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is pleased to announce a special exhibition of photographs celebrating Bob Gomel’s recent 90th birthday with several never-before-see photographs from three of his most iconic assignments for LIFE magazine: photographs of The Beatles, Muhammad Ali, and President John F. Kennedy.

The exhibition opens with a Gallery conversation with Bob Gomel on Friday, October 6. Talk begins promptly at 5:30, seated is limited and RSVP is essential; contact the Gallery for live Zoom registration. The exhibition continues through November 19, 2023.

The photographs of Bob Gomel put you in a diner with Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X after Ali’s defeat of Sonny Liston, poolside with the Beatles, and in the audience at Rice University as President John F. Kennedy delivered his historic “We choose to go to the Moon” speech. This exhibit explores three classic assignments for LIFE magazine with many never-before-seen photographs of The Beatles, Muhammad Ali, and President John F. Kennedy.

 “I had no idea the 60s would be so iconic. It seemed quite ordinary at the time, but looking back on it now, I realize how fortunate I was.”

From the tumult of battle to the glamour of movie stars, from the wonders of nature to the coronation of kings, queens, and presidents, the work of LIFE photographers is as much a history of American photojournalism as it is a history of the changing face of the latter part of the Twentieth Century. On the pages of LIFE, through the images captured by these masters, the eyes of a nation were opened as never before to a changing world. 

The triumphs and tragedies of the 1960s provided photographer Bob Gomel and his LIFE magazine colleague’s extraordinary opportunities to advance American photojournalism. "LIFE was the world's best forum for photojournalists. We were encouraged to push creative and technical boundaries. There was no better place to work in that extraordinary decade." 


Invitation card with 3 images by Bob Gomel: Black Muslim leader Malcolm X photographing Cassius Clay after he defeated Sonny Liston for the Heavyweight Championship, Miami, 1964 2. John F. Kennedy, Houston, before giving his famous speech at Rice University about going to the moon, 1962 3. The Beatles on pool chairs,, Miami, 1964


Bob Gomel was born (1933) and raised in New York City. After serving four years in the U.S. Navy, he was promptly offered a job at the Associated Press. But by then, he had changed his mind about what he wanted to do. “I just felt one picture wasn’t sufficient to tell a story,” he explains. “I was interested in exploring something in depth. And, of course, the mecca was Life magazine.”He turned down the offer from AP, and began working for LIFE in 1959, producing many memorable images. When LIFE ceased being a weekly in the early 1970s, he began making photographs for other major magazines. Also in the 1970s, he branched out into advertising photography. Among other accounts, he helped introduce Merrill Lynch’s Bullish on America campaign.

Bob says, “Each time I raised a camera to my eye I wondered how to make a viewer say, “wow.” What followed were the use of double exposures to tell a more complete story; placing remote cameras where no human being could be; adapting equipment to reveal what could not ordinarily be captured on film. My goal with people was to penetrate the veneer, to reveal the true personality or character. The ideal was sometimes mitigated by circumstances, a lack of time or access. But more often than not what the mind conceived could be translated into successful photographic images. Life Magazine in the 60s sold 8,000,000 copies a week. It was a great honor to be a part of that information highway.” 


Tuesday, August 15, 2023

What Life Magazine Taught Me About Life

 Via The Atlantic

August 14, 2023


As a child, I saw the country in its photos, stories, and advertisements—and learned some hard truths about America.

By Drew Gilpin Faust

(Subscription required)

I grew up in the 1950s, on a farm in Virginia miles away from any town or neighbors. For most of my childhood we didn’t have a television, so my three brothers and I amused ourselves fighting pretend Civil War battles in the fields and woods around our house or vying over card and board games that we spread across the living-room floor.

But for me, the best entertainment was always reading. I read for pleasure, for company, and for escape from my contained Virginia world. I could explore other places and imagine myself into other lives—lives that went beyond the limited choices available to my mother and the women of her circle, who were all ruled by the era’s prescriptions of female domesticity. The written word introduced me to what girls could do: solve mysteries, like Nancy Drew; brave the Nazis, like Anne Frank; demand change, like the protagonist of Susan Anthony: Girl Who Dared. Reading could provide, to borrow Scout’s words in To Kill a Mockingbird, a way to escape “the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on me.” And words could carry me beyond the gentle slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains that rose behind our house. They offered a view of national and global affairs that caught me up in a sense of urgency. I was frightened by the fact that Sputnik had been launched and was passing by overhead every 96 minutes in its orbit of the Earth. I wondered how the Russians had beaten us into space. I was inspired by the courage of Hungarians fighting against communism. I was reassured by portraits of the confident prosperity of postwar America. Yet I felt growing doubt and unease as I read descriptions of the turbulence and conflict emerging to undermine it. (more - subscription required)


Exhibition: The LIFE Photographers

Friday, July 14, 2023

An Evening with Bob Gomel and screening of the film Bob Gomel: Eyewitness

Via MATCH Houston 


When history was made, Bob Gomel was there.

Graphic advertisement for movie screening of "Bob Gomel Eyewitness" with text over black and white photograph of Bob Gomel holding his camera


Bob Gomel: Eyewitness is a documentary that examines the stories behind the stories of some of the most significant events in the 20th century. Hear and see the history unfold from the perspective of a legendary LIFE Magazine photographer. Join us for An Evening with Bob Gomel - The theatrical premier of the documentary Bob Gomel: Eyewitness, including 14 additional minutes of previously unseen material. There will be a Q/A session with Bob Gomel and director David Scarbrough following the showing. 

Thursday, July 20 at 7:30 PM


Q & A Immediately following the screening

with Bob Gomel and David Scarbrough 

Tickets: $10


How the documentary came to be:

Bob Gomel and David Scarbrough share a love of storytelling through photography.


During the past decade the two men and their spouses, Sandy Gomel and Mary Scarbrough, became friends. Bob’s shot of The Beatles in poolside lounge chairs hangs in the Scarbroughs’ home. It was Mary’s birthday gift to David for his 60th birthday.

David said, “The history Bob witnessed is important. So are the effort and creativity necessary to make extraordinary images of these historic moments. Many of the images are made even more powerful by Bob’s perspective on how they were created. ”David convinced Bob to reflect on his work for LIFE magazine in the 1960s and his subsequent career.

Over dinner one evening, the Scarbroughs proposed making a documentary of Bob’s career. Bob said, “David offered a compelling idea to consider. After a few days, I said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

The documentary project came together quickly. A small studio was set up in Scarbrough’s retail computer electronics shop in Houston. Sessions were shot on Sundays when the shop was closed and outside noise was minimal. As many filmmakers do now, David chose to record the videos in 4K on two iPhones in a two-shot setup. A MacBook Pro and Adobe Premier Pro were be used to edit the video.

The recordings began with a discussion of the Cassius Clay and Sonny Liston fights. The project quickly gained momentum as David executed his vision for the project, and the stories of more of the epic photos came to life.

“The challenge was to balance Bob’s unique ability to talk about the images and history, and to ensure the viewer remained immersed in the image itself,” David said. “I hope the viewer can briefly live in the moment of the images.”

Bob said, “The decade of the 1960s was historically powerful. We witnessed so much — from the terrific to the terrible. I’m grateful that David remains interested in the history of the 1960s and that his documentary helped share my perspective on the extraordinary events of the decade and on my life as a photographer.”

A headline in a recent Albuquerque Journal article read: “Bob Gomel’s Photographs Compel Even after 40 Years.” The renowned LIFE photographer has documented many of the great moments and personalities of contemporary history. Articles and books have chronicled Bob’s adventures, including Art Buckwald’s “Leaving Home”, Yoko Ono’s “Memories of John Lennon”, “Arnold Palmer: A Personal Journey,” “Malcolm X”, by Thulani Davis, and Dick Stolley’s “Our Century in Pictures”. His work is exhibited at The Monroe Gallery, Santa Fe.

Bob is a founding member of the Houston chapter of ASMP, the American Society of Media Photographers. ASMP is the leading professional organization for photographers and videographers working in the visual marketplace. The core mission of ASMP is to advocate, educate, and provide community for image makers — fostering thriving careers, a strong sense of professional ethics, and an unshakable belief in the power of images.


Forthcoming exhibition and Gallery Talk with Bob Gomel: October 6, 2023. Details soon!

Sunday, April 23, 2023

Capturing Humanity: Photography exhibit explores snapshots of New York’s ordinary people

 

black and white photo of young Boy wearing hankerchief as a mask, New York City, c. 1946 by Sonia Handelman Meyer.


Via The Albuquerque Journal

BY KATHALEEN ROBERTS / JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Sunday, April 23, 2023


Two pioneering women photographers who were blacklisted by the Red Scare share wall space at Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography.

Both Sonia Handelman Meyer and Ida Wyman were members of the Photo League. The league was a collective of photographers active from 1936-1951, who believed their work could change poor social conditions and champion photography as an art form. It thrived as one of the most progressive, dynamic and creative centers for photography in the country. About one-third of its members were women.

Handelman Meyer and Wyman roamed the streets of New York, capturing the humanity of ordinary people. In some ways, their gender helped them remain invisible to the people they photographed.

“There was a great advantage to being a woman at that time, to be considered as no consequence,” gallery co-owner Michelle Monroe said.

Handelman Meyer learned about socially engaged photography in workshops by one of the Photo League founders Sid Grossman.

She captured three boys affecting tough guy poses after chasing her down the streets of Spanish Harlem demanding that she photograph them. She also shot “Boy Wearing Mask, New York City” (1946-1950), an image less mysterious that it seems.

“He was playing cops and robbers,” Monroe said. “The way he’s looking at her; there’s a lot of ambiguities about that child. Was he playing? Is it mistrust? Was it just an interruption from an adult? He’s just playing.”

Wyman photographed for Life and Business Week magazines, as well as her own enjoyment. Her work went unheralded for decades.

She was 19 and working in Manhattan as a photo printer for the Acme Newspictures agency when she photographed several men in Manhattan’s garment district in April 1945. One held up a copy of The Jewish Daily Forward, the Yiddish-language newspaper, as the others read about President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death. Wyman’s “Looking East on 41st Street, NYC” (1947) down a canyon of skyscrapers captures the majesty and industry of the city.


black and white photo of men in the Garment District reading a newspaper in Yiddish about President Roosevelt’s Death, NYC, 1945,” Ida Wyman.

“Men of the Garment District Read of President Roosevelt’s Death, NYC, 1945,” Ida Wyman. (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery)


Before Handelman Meyer and Wyman, women were often assigned to shoot department store openings, Monroe said.

In 1947, the Photo League appeared on a long list of organizations identified with the Communist Party. Efforts to counter the allegation included a large exhibition, “This Is the Photo League.” But in 1949, Angela Calomiris, a Photo League member and F.B.I. informant, publicly testified that members of the organization were Communists. The League disbanded in 1951, a casualty of the Red Scare.

The league’s secretary at the time, Handelman Meyer answered the office phone when requests for comment about the accusations poured in from the media. She also received threatening calls.

“It got to be too much,” she told The New York Times. “They were blacklisting people. There were photographers who could not get their passports for overseas jobs. Little by little, it dissolved.”

When the league closed, Handelman Meyer put her photos and negatives in boxes and moved on with her life. They wouldn’t be opened for many years.

In the early 1940s, the list of notable photographers who were active in the league or supported their activities also included Margaret Bourke-White, W. Eugene Smith, Helen Levitt, Farm Security Administration photographer Arthur Rothstein, Beaumont Newhall, Nancy Newhall, Richard Avedon, Weegee, Robert Frank, Harold Feinstein, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Minor White.


‘Two Pioneering Women Photographers of the Photo League’

Sonia Handelman Meyer and Ida Wyman

WHEN: Through June 18

WHERE: Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar Ave., Santa Fe

CONTACT: 505-992-0800, monroegallery.com



screen shot of article in newspaper


Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Friday, December 23, 2022

Tony Vaccaro centennial exhibition on view at Monroe Gallery of Photography

 Via Art Daily

December 23, 2022

color photograph of a glowing sunset portrait of the twin towers of the World Trade Center from 1979

A glowing sunset portrait of the twin towers of the World Trade Center from 1979


SANTA FE, NM.- A new exhibitions celebrates the 100th birthday of acclaimed photographer Tony Vaccaro in Santa Fe. The show has been on view at Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe since November 25, 2022, and will end on January 29, 2023.

Vaccaro is known for his photographs of WWII, which were the subject of a 2016 HBO documentary, and his editorial work for Life, Look, Newsweek, Vanity Fair and countless other publications. The exhibitions coincide with Tony Vaccaro 100! on view at the Museum für Photographie in Braunschweig, Germany. In both locations, Tony Vaccaro: The Centennial Exhibition, juxtaposes the living legend’s powerful war images with the lyrical mid-century fashion, film, and pop culture photographs that came later.

On view are more than four dozen photographs dating from 1944-1979. From the battlefields of Europe to the rooftops of Manhattan, Vaccaro trained his inimitable lens with a sensitivity derived from early hardship as an orphan in Italy. After the war, he replaced the searing images of horror embedded in his memory, by focusing on the splendor of life and capturing the beauty of fashion and those who gave of themselves: artists, writers, movie stars, and cultural figures. From a photograph of a running soldier in 1944’s Battle of the Bulge to a shot of the actress Gwen Verdon swinging in a hammock against a New York skyline, the exhibition illustrates Vaccaro’s will to live against all odds and to advance the power of beauty. Several never-before-exhibited photographs are on view: a 1951 image of a bevy of beautiful women surrounding one in a pink dress on a balcony, a 1968 shot of Vaccaro holding up a test strip during a photo shoot, and a glowing sunset portrait of the twin towers of the World Trade Center from 1979.

As Vaccaro passed his 100th birthday on December 20, 2022, he has survived two bouts of Covid, and is one of the few people alive who can claim to have survived the Battle of Normandy and Covid. He attributes his longevity to “blind luck, red wine and determination.”

“To me, the greatest thing that you can do is challenge the world,” said Vaccaro. “And most of these challenges I win. That’s what keeps me going.”

Born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, on December 20, 1922, Michelantonio Celestino Onofrio Vaccaro spent the first years of his life in the village of Bonefro, Italy, after his family left America under threat from the Mafia. Both of his parents had died by the time he was eight years old, and he was raised by an uncaring aunt and a brutal uncle. His love of photography began in Bonefro where at age ten, he began taking pictures with a box camera. When World War II broke out, the American ambassador in Rome ordered Vaccaro to return to the States. He settled in with his sisters in New Rochelle, N.Y., where he joined his high school camera club. His teacher and mentor Bertram Lewis guided him through a year of concentrated apprenticeship.

A year later, at the age of 21, Vaccaro was drafted into the war. He was determined to photograph the war, and had his portable 35mm Argus C-3 with him from the start. By the spring of 1944 he was photographing war games in Wales. By June, now a combat infantryman in the 83rd Infantry Division, he was on a boat heading toward Omaha Beach, six days after the first landings at Normandy. For the next 272 days, Vaccaro fought and photographed on the front lines of the war. He entered Germany in December 1944, as a private in the Intelligence Platoon, and was tasked with going behind enemy lines at night. In the years after the war, he remained in Germany to photograph the rebuilding of the country for Stars and Stripes magazine.

Returning to the States in 1950, Vacarro started his career as a commercial photographer, eventually working for virtually every major publication: Flair, Life, Look, Harper’s Bazaar, Quick, Newsweek, Town and Country, Venture, and many more. Tony went on to become one the most sought after photographers of his day, photographing everyone from Enzo Ferrari and Sophia Loren to Pablo Picasso, Peggy Guggenheim and Frank Lloyd Wright. From 1970 to 1980 he taught photography at Cooper Union.

“Il Maestro,” as the Italian press calls him, has won numerous honors and awards. These include the Art Director’s Gold Medal (New York City, 1963), The World Press Photo Gold Medal (The Hague, 1969), The Legion of Honor (Paris, 1994), The Medal of Honor (Luxembourg, 2002), Das Verdienstkreuz (Berlin, 2004), and the Minerva d’Oro (Pescara, 2014).

Since retiring in 1982, Vaccaro’s work has been exhibited world-wide over 250 times and has been published or been the subject of ten books and two major films. In 2014, the Museo Foto Tony Vaccaro was inaugurated in Bonefro, Italy.

Vaccaro’s works are in numerous private and public collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

In 2016, HBO Films premiered Under Fire: The Untold Story of Private First Class Tony Vaccaro. The film tells the story of how he survived the war, fighting the enemy while also documenting his experience at great risk, developing his photos in combat helmets at night and hanging the negatives from tree branches. The film also encompasses a wide range of contemporary issues regarding combat photography such as the ethical challenges of witnessing and recording conflict, the ways in which combat photography helps to define how wars are perceived by the public, and the sheer difficulty of staying alive while taking photos in a war zone. The film has led to a career renaissance for Vaccaro.

In 2018, Vaccaro’s photographs were featured in major one-person exhibitions in Venezia, Italy; Potsdam, Germany; London, England; and Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2019, he was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame in St. Louis, Mo. In 2021 the Kunsthalle Helsinki presented the exhibition Tony Vaccaro: Life Is Wonderful, a selection of 130 images from his career of nearly 80 year

Saturday, December 10, 2022

Photographer Tony Vaccaro, 99, captures ‘beauty of life’ — from WWII to haute couture

 Via The NY Post

December 10, 2022


Tony Vaccaro in his stufio with pictures of Calder, Sophia Loren, and Georgia O'Keeffe

What began as a childhood pastime in Italy turned into a career that took Tony Vaccaro around the world Photo credit  Manolo Salas

Tony Vaccaro took his first picture when he was 10 years old and living in Italy. He soon started toting a camera everywhere — to school, on camping trips, a visit to the Vatican, and eventually to the frontlines of World War II, where, as an American soldier, he documented the Battle of the Bulge, the Liberation of France and the tragic deaths of his comrades.

After that, Vaccaro vowed he would devote himself not to the brutality of war, but to “beauty.”

“I said to myself, ‘You must photograph those people who give mankind something,’” the 99-year-old photographer, who lives in Long Island City, told The Post. “And I went after them — all of them.”

He sure did: Vaccaro has snapped everyone from Jackson Pollock to John F. Kennedy, Jr., Sophia Loren, Lee Krasner, Frank Lloyd Wright — who gave Vaccaro one of his canes, which the shutterbug still uses today — and countless other luminaries, who often became his friends.

Vaccaro turns 100 on Dec. 20, and a new exhibit celebrates his extraordinary life and career. “Tony Vaccaro: The Centennial Exhibition” runs Dec. 13 to 18 at the Monroe Gallery of Photography pop-up at 21 Spring St., Nolita. It features some two dozen images from a deep body of work, from harrowing war photos to whimsical fashion shoots to portraits of celebrities and artists, including Eartha Kitt and Georgia O’Keeffe.

“In the process of doing that, I hope I gave mankind something back,” Vaccaro said.

Tony Vaccaro in his studio holding on of his framed photographs

Now nearly 100, Vaccaro has snapped countless celebrities, creatives and other luminaries.
Phot credit  Manolo Salas

Vaccaro likes to joke that he has survived the Battle of Normandy and two bouts of COVID, but his entire life story is one of remarkable resilience. Born in Greensburg, Penn., on December 20, 1922, he spent his early childhood in Italy after his family had to flee the States under threat of the Mafia. By the age of 5, both of his parents were dead.

“I was raised by my uncle, who physically abused me,” Vaccaro said. “But he did give me my father’s box camera, and my love for photography was born.”

As fascism swept through Italy, a teenaged Vaccaro went back to the States, reuniting with his two sisters in Westchester County. As an immigrant who didn’t speak English, carrying his camera, which he used to document his classmates and their adventures, made him feel accepted.

Tony Vaccaro on NY rooftop holding a color test strip, 1960
As a young immigrant who didn’t speak English, Vaccaro found that his camera helped him feel accepted.  Tony Vaccaro with test strip, NY, 1960
Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography

At 21, he was drafted into the US Army. He carried his 35 mm Argus C3, along with his gun, to the frontlines. He used army helmets to develop his film at night and hung the prints on tree branches to dry. He was shot and injured twice and got a purple heart. Afterward, he used his experience shooting on the front lines to bring life and spontaneity to the staid world of fashion shoots, much like Richard Avedon and Gordon Parks.

Vaccaro retired in the 1980s, but he still takes pictures of his 8-year-old twin grandchildren, Luke and Liam (who live in the apartment across the hall from him in Queens), and even photographed the New York City Marathon in November. He also shares an incredible array of vintage snaps on Instagram — @tonyvaccarophotographer — with the help of his daughter-in-law, Maria.

Two weeks ago, he went to the hospital with a burst stomach ulcer, and was still recovering from surgery when he spoke with The Post last week. (His son, Frank, helped Vaccaro form his responses, jogging his memory.)

Still, he has not lost his boundless zest for life.
Tony Vaccaro seated in his studio in front of his photograph of DeKooning seated

Vaccaro with a photo of Willem de Kooning — the abstract expressionist artist was one of many 20th century boldface names to befriend the photographer over the years.Manolo Salas

“I feel super,” he said over the phone from his hospital bed, adding that he credits “chocolate, red wine and determination” for his longevity.

“I have been lucky,” he said. “I want the world to know the beauty of life.”


"White Death" a dead soldier cover in snow, WWII, Belgium, 1944
Tony Vaccaro’s “White Death”   Tony Vaccaro, courtesy of Monroe Gallery

Vaccaro snapped this stark photo of a fallen soldier lying face down in the snow before he realized the body belonged to his friend, Pvt. Henry Irving Tannenbaum. More than 50 years later, Tannenbaum’s son Sam contacted Vaccaro to ask about his father, and the two ended up going to the field where he had been killed. “I was confused to find that the field had transformed into a forest — pine trees everywhere,” Vaccaro recalled. “The land owner told us that it wasn’t actually a forest, but that the field is used for growing Christmas trees to be sold in Spain. Can you imagine — tannenbaum means Christmas tree in German!”
WWII American soldier kissing a young girl in liberated town in France
Tony Vaccaro’s “Kiss of Liberation,” 1945.Tony Vaccaro, courtesy of Monroe Gallery

Vaccaro often credits this photo of American soldier Gene Costanzo kissing a small French girl in St. Briac, Brittany at the end of the war as his favorite picture. “The day we liberated this small town in France I will never forget,” he wrote in an Instagram post. It was an early summer morning and when news of the liberation broke, women and children flooded the streets. “I was lucky that the French kiss three times [instead of one]. Otherwise I may have missed this warm moment between the soldier and this little girl.”
a distraught German soldier returns home to find his house gone, Frankfurt, Germany, 1946
Tony Vaccaro’s “Defeated Soldier,” 1947.Tony Vaccaro, courtesy of Monroe Gallery

After the war, Stars and Stripes magazine asked Vaccaro to stay in Europe to document the rebuilding of Germany. As he was leaving the US embassy in Frankfurt to pick up his passport, he stumbled upon a German soldier crying outside what was once his home. “He had lost his wife and children,” Vaccaro said. “He had apparently been released from a prisoner camp in Texas or Oklahoma.” The experience of getting to know the enemy made him realize “we all bleed the same blood.” “When we got to know each other we were not much different,” he said.


Georgia O'Keefe on the portal of her Abiquiu home in New Mexico with s cow's skull on the door frame
Georgia O’Keeffe at home in 1960.Tony Vaccaro Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography

Vaccaro was assigned to photograph then 72-year-old artist O’Keeffe at her home in New Mexico for Look magazine in 1960. But when he arrived, she refused to look at him. “She was expecting a different photographer,” Vaccaro said. After five days of ignoring him, she mentioned something about Manolette, considered the greatest bullfighter of all time. “I told her that I had photographed Manolette and that I could send her a photograph,” Vaccaro recalled. “So she turned towards me, and for the next two days, never looked, nor talked, to the writer [who had accompanied Vaccaro for the story], Charlotte Willard.” Willard left “in a huff,” and Vaccaro stayed nearly two weeks, snagging scores of intimate portraits.
Gwen Verdon in a hammock on a NY rooftop, 1953

Gwen Verdon on a New York City rooftop in 1953.Tony Vaccaro, courtesy of Monroe Gallery

The Tony Award-winning actress, dancer and choreographer Gwen Verdon was one of Vaccaro’s favorite fashion subjects. “She was a sensation,” he recalled. “She did anything and tried everything.” The photographer was shooting Verdon for a quickie fashion shoot and had to improvise something on the outside balcony of the 12th floor of LOOK magazine, so he tied a hammock and instructed Verdon to lounge on it. “I also had a basket of apples at the studio that day, and we ended up rolling them all on the floor of the photoshoot.”


color photo of Gicenchy holding a camera to his eye by his pool in the South of France, 1961
Givenchy at home with partner Phillip in 1961.Tony Vaccaro  Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography


Vaccaro struck up a friendship with the French couturier Hubert de Givenchy after photographing him and his designs for various magazines. After one shoot, Vaccaro joined Givenchy and his partner Philip by their pool and taught the designer how to use a camera, which Vaccaro of course documented with his own point-and-shoot.

 
color photograph of Eartha Kitt being dressed by designed Givenchy in his Paris showroom

Eartha Kitt at Givenchy’s showroom in 1961.Tony Vaccaro, courtesy of Monroe Gallery

Vaccaro caught the frenzy chaos of a fitting with superstar Eartha Kitt at Givenchy’s Paris showroom. To the right, you can spot the shutterbug holding his camera, “just having fun.”
The Fashion Train, New York, 1960


color photograph of fashion model in pink outfit and hat with suitcase on a commuter train in NY

Tony Vaccaro’s “The Fashion Train” 1961Tony Vaccaro  Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography


Vaccaro took this picture in 1960 for Good Housekeeping of a fashion model walking through a smoke-filled train. He strove for naturalism in his fashion shoots. “Over time I was able to remove anything artificial – even poses,” he said. “I put my subjects in an environment — their favorite environment — and then I took photos.”


models in colorful Marimekko dresses with colorful umbrellas on a dock in Finland
Tony Vaccaro’s “Fun in Finland” 1965. The model on the left, Anja Lehto, would later become his wife.Tony Vaccaro  Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography


Vaccaro shot many campaigns for the Finnish brand, Marimekko, mainly because he was in love with one of the company’s models, Anja Lehto, shown here on the left. “I met her in 1961, when LIFE magazine sent me to 57th Street, between Park and Madison, to photograph [the brand],” he recalled. “Girl number one came in, did her walk, girl number three, girl number four — I looked at her and said, ‘That’s my wife.’” It took a couple years and photoshoots — Lehto was married to Finnish royalty at the time — but the two got hitched in 1963 and had two children. (She died in 2013.)
38

model with an architectural hat resembling the Guggenheim museum in front of the Guggenheim, NY, 1960
Tony Vaccaro’s “The Guggenheim Hat” 1960 Tony Vaccaro  Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography


Vaccaro had incredible freedom in his photo shoots, and when LOOK magazine sent him this sculptural hat to shoot for a story, he immediately knew he wanted to photograph the model Isabella wearing it in front of his favorite museum, the Guggenheim in New York City.



21 Spring Street, NY


Tony Vaccaro The Centennial Exhibition Santa Fe ongoing through January 15, 2023
112 Don Gaspar Avenue, Santa Fe, NM

Thursday, October 20, 2022

The magazine that gave photography unprecedented power

 Via The Washington Post

October 20, 2022


photograph of covers of 3 LIFE magazine issues
© Ann and Graham Gund Gallery/Photograph copyright Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Ann and Graham Gund Gallery
Photograph copyright Museum of Fine Arts, Boston


This fact floored me: Between the Great Depression and the Vietnam War, according to the organizers of “Life Magazine and the Power of Photography,” an exhibition at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, “the majority of photographs printed and consumed in the United States appeared on the pages of illustrated magazines.”

Today, with photographs published and consumed everywhere, it’s staggering to think that their dissemination was ever so concentrated.

Preeminent among illustrated magazines was Life. Published as a weekly news magazine between 1936 and 1972, Life magazine sold in the tens of millions. When you include pass-along readership, its pages regularly reached about one-quarter of America’s population. -- click to continue with full article


Life Magazine and the Power of Photography Through Jan. 16 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. mfa.org.


Related exhibit: The LIFE Photographers

Wednesday, October 12, 2022

New MFA exhibit explores world history through photography: "LIFE Magazine and the Power of Photography,”

Via The Suffolk Journal

October 12, 2022

By Leo Woods

The Museum of Fine Arts opened its newest exhibit, “LIFE Magazine and the Power of Photography,” on Oct. 9, allowing patrons to step back in time and experience some of the most pivotal moments of the 20th century captured on film. 

The exhibit, made in collaboration with Princeton University Art Museum, details the genesis of LIFE, which was published weekly from 1936-1972. Henry R. Luce, the founder of LIFE, took inspiration from European picture magazines to create a publication that would be both visually enticing and informative to the American people. His work was a success, as LIFE regularly reached 1 in 4 Americans during the years of its publication, according to the MFA.

As visitors walk through the exhibit, they see the process by which LIFE was developed and found its niche over time. With unique insight into the photography process and how stories were developed for the magazine, the exhibit seeks to examine how American views of the 20th century were shaped by magazines from the period. 

The works of over 30 photographers are featured in the exhibit, including Margaret Bourke-White, Robert Capa, Frank Dandrige and Gordon Parks. Each photographer’s signature style and vision are clear in their use of composition and perspective, from Bourke-White’s empowering portraits of female steelworkers in Indiana to Dandrige’s heartbreaking still at the bedside of Sarah Jean Collins, one of the victims of the 1963 bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala.

One of the most striking parts of the exhibit is the section titled “Documenting War,” which shows how photojournalists for LIFE were on the front lines of World War II and the Vietnam War, capturing historical images that allowed Americans to see the unfiltered reality of conflict overseas. Capa was one of only four photographers permitted to document the storming of Normandy, France, and the slightly shaky picture of soldiers running up the beach through the waves was published in LIFE at least eight times, according to the caption underneath the image.

While LIFE sought to bring nuance to stories with their photography, the magazine’s audience primarily consisted of white, middle-class Americans, and the photo essays reflected the attitudes of that group. When George Rodger and Bourke-White’s haunting photos of the recently liberated German concentration camps were published in 1945, LIFE refused to identify victims of the Holocaust as Jewish, reinforcing the anti-semitic sentiment in the United States at the time.

LIFE’s pieces also portrayed the U.S. as a “savior” of individuals like Japanese-Americans who were forced into internment camps in the aftermath of the bombing at Pearl Harbor. The magazine published letters to the editor criticizing the inaccurate depiction of the camps and the unfair treatment of the incarcerated residents, but the majority of reader responses “expressed vehemently xenophobic anti-Japanese sentiments,” according to a caption beside images of the camps.

In an effort to highlight the bias and discrepancies still present in journalism today, the MFA has included immersive works by contemporary artists Alfredo Jaar, Alexandra Bell and Julia Wachtel dispersed throughout the exhibit. 

Jaar’s featured pieces include work from his Rwanda Project, which documented the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Jaar called the project an “exercise in representation,” challenging the international community’s lack of response to the genocide. Over 1 million Rwandans belonging to the Tutsi ethnic group were killed by Hutu militias during a 100-day period, and no outside governments intervened, much less acknowledged that it was happening.

In an effort to contextualize the scale of the genocide, Jaar created “Eyes of Nduwa yezu,” a display of 1 million picture slides of a young boy, Nduwayezu, who witnessed his parents’ murder by Hutu militia members. The piece is striking, the eyes of the young boy seem to bore into the viewer, challenging them to feel the despair he does.

Bell’s “Counternarrative” series examines the implicit bias and systemic racism present in reporting today. Side-by-side images of the front page of the New York Times show Bell’s edits in red ink, pointing out how whiteness is seen as innocent in the eyes of the press, especially in the case of Michael Brown Jr., a Black Missouri teenager killed by a white police officer in 2017. 

The MFA commissioned Wachtel to create a multimedia piece to go alongside images of Japanese internment camps from the 1940s, and the stage-like composition of the work creates a commentary on the politicization of mass media, as well as LIFE’s erasure of the truth behind the camps. Oil paintings of Gen. Douglas MacArthur cover a blurred photo of internment camp residents, showing how the U.S.’s military power superseded the humanity of individuals solely based on their race.

“LIFE Magazine and the Power of Photography” offers a revolutionary insight into American history and culture, as well as explores the incredible impact publications like LIFE had on a global scale. Timed-entry tickets are required to view the exhibit, which is on display until Jan. 16, 2023.


Related: THE LIFE PHOTOGRAPHERS: Celebrating Monroe Gallery’s 20th Anniversary in Santa Fe

Monday, October 10, 2022

Bill Eppridge’s Vibrant Portrait of America in the 1960s: A new exhibition charts the legacy of a photojournalist who chronicled the nation during a turbulent era.

screen shot of Blind magazine article on Bill Eppridge wth mourners holding "Goodbye Bobby" signs as the RFK funeral train passes, 1968

 Via BLIND Magazine

October 10, 2022


“A journalist does not necessarily imply ‘artist’ but you are not going to make your point if you cannot make a picture that people will stop and explore,” said Bill Eppridge (1938 – 2013). As one of the most accomplished photojournalists of the 20th century, Eppridge chronicled the breaking stories of his day, helping to shape the way in which the nation navigated a tumultuous era. Whether documenting the Vietnam War, Woodstock, and the Civil Rights Movement or bearing witness to the tragic end to Senator Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign, Eppridge brought a humanistic approach to reporting. (click for full article with photographs)


The Legacy of Bill Eppridge is on exhibit through November 20, 2022

Saturday, October 1, 2022

Tony Vaccaro 100: A Life of a Photographer from War to Culture

 

The Museum für Photographie Braunschweig logo


Via Photography in Berlin

October 1, 2022

color photograph of Tony Vaccaro holding a test stip, NY, 1968


A Life of a Photographer from War to Culture

Curated by Barbara Hofmann-Johnson, Director Museum für Photographie Braunschweig.

The Museum für Photographie Braunschweig shows for the 100th Birthday of Tony Vaccaro (* December 20, 1922 in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, lives in Long Island, NY) an exhibition of the American photographer of Italian descent and presents important and award-winning works from different creative phases. These include photographs taken during and after World War II in Europe and important portraits of artists, musicians, politicians and cultural figures.

With a special sense for composition and the connection to the outside space, fashion photographs are also part of Tony Vaccaro’s work. Some of the artistically staged fashion shots are part of the exhibition, especially those that were taken for a documentary for Marimekko, the Finnish design house in the 1960s, are particularly noteworthy.

The exhibition at the Museum für Photographie Braunschweig is created in cooperation and with the support of Tony Vaccaro Studio, New York City, USA and the Monroe Gallery of Photography Collection, Santa Fe, NM, USA.


Museum für Photographie Braunschweig

Helmstedter Straße 1 · 38102 Braunschweig
Opening hours: Tue – Fri 1 – 6 pm, Sat & Sun 11 am – 6 pm
Admission: 3,50 € / reduced 2,00 €. Happy Thursday: Free admission & extended opening hours until 8 pm & guided tour at 6 pm every first Thursday of the month.




Monroe Gallery of Photography will announce two additional major exhibits celebrating Tony Vaccaro's 100th birthday. "Tony Vaccaro: The Centennial Exhibition" will be on view in Santa Fe, NM and New York, NY - details to be announced

Monday, September 19, 2022

Monroe Gallery of Photography is honored to announce major exhibitions celebrating Tony Vaccaro’s 100th birthday

 

Logo for Museum for Photography Braunschweig, Germany

Via Museum für Photographie Braunschweig · 

TONY VACCARO 100!

A Life of a Photographer from War to Culture

GI and woman looking at rubble of destroyed building after WWII in Frankfurt, Germany, 1947

Tony Vaccaro: Entering Germany, Frankfurt Germany, 1947
© Tony Vaccaro Studio, Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography and the Tony Vaccaro Studio



The Museum für Photographie Braunschweig shows for the 100! Birthday of Tony Vaccaro  (born December 20, 1922 in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, lives in Long Island, NY) an exhibition of the American photographer of Italian descent and presents important and award-winning works from different creative phases. These include photographs taken during and after World War II in Europe and important portraits of artists, musicians, politicians and cultural figures.


With a special sense for composition and the connection to the outside space, fashion photographs 
are also part of Tony Vaccaro’s work. Some of the artistically staged fashion shots are part of the exhibition, especially those that were taken for a documentary for Marimekko, the Finnish design house in the 1960s, are particularly noteworthy.


The exhibition at the Museum für Photographie Braunschweig is created in cooperation and with the support of Tony Vaccaro Studio, New York City, USA and the Monroe Gallery of Photography Collection, Santa Fe, NM, USA.


Museum für Photographie Braunschweig · Helmstedter Straße 1 · D-38102 Braunschweig


Supported by: City of Braunschweig, Foundation of Lower Saxony, MWK, DB, Wine Shop Bremer


Monroe Gallery of Photography is honored to announce major exhibitions celebrating Tony Vaccaro’s 100th birthday. "Tony Vaccaro 100" is at the The Museum für Photographie Braunschweig in Germany October 1 - December 4, 200. "Tony Vaccaro: The Centennial Exhibition” opens in Santa Fe, NM on Friday, November 25, with Tony Vaccaro appearing remotely live from his New York home at 5:30 pm. The exhibition will continue through January 15, 2023.

A special satellite exhibit in New York City will be on view at the Monroe Gallery of Photography "pop up", 21 Spring Street, New York City, December 13 – 18. Tony Vaccaro will be in attendance on the evenings of December 14 – 17, RSVP required, please contact the Gallery.


Friday, September 9, 2022

LIFE Magazine and the Power of Photography October 9, 2022–January 16, 2023

 Via Museum of Fine Arts Boston

3 frames of female welder Ann Zarik with torch, 1943  by Margaret Bourke-White

Margaret Bourke-White, Flame Burner Ann Zarik, 1943

From the Great Depression to the Vietnam War, almost all of the photographs printed for consumption by the American public appeared in illustrated magazines. Among them, Life magazine—published weekly from 1936 to 1972—was both wildly popular and visually revolutionary, with photographs arranged in groundbreaking dramatic layouts known as photo essays. This exhibition takes a closer look at the creation and impact of the carefully selected images found in the pages of Life—and the precisely crafted narratives told through these pictures—in order to reveal how the magazine shaped conversations about war, race, technology, national identity, and more in the 20th-century United States. From Neil Armstrong’s photographs of the historic moon landing to Charles Moore’s coverage of the Birmingham civil rights demonstrations, the photographs on view capture some of the defining moments—celebratory and traumatic alike—of the last 100 years.

Drawing on unprecedented access to Life magazine’s picture and paper archives as well as photographers’ archives, the exhibition brings together more than 180 objects, including vintage photographs, contact sheets, assignment outlines, internal memos, and layout experiments. Visitors can trace the construction of a Life photo essay from assignment through to the creative and editorial process of shaping images into a compelling story. This focus departs from the historic fascination with the singular photographic genius and instead celebrates the collaborative efforts behind many now-iconic images and stories. Particular attention is given to the women staff members of Life, whose roles remained forgotten or overshadowed by the traditional emphasis on men at the magazine. Most photographs on view are original working press prints—made to be used in the magazine’s production—and represent the wide range of photographers who worked for Life, such as Margaret Bourke-White, Larry Burrows, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Frank Dandridge, Yousuf Karsh, Gordon Parks, and W. Eugene Smith.

Interspersed throughout the exhibition, three immersive contemporary “moments” feature works by artists active today who interrogate news media through their practice. A multimedia installation by Alfredo Jaar, screen prints and photographs by Alexandra Bell, and a new commission by Julia Wachtel frame larger conversations for visitors about implicit biases and systemic racism in contemporary media.

“Life Magazine and the Power of Photography” offers a revealing look at the collaborative processes behind many of Life’s most recognizable, beloved, and controversial images and photo essays, while incorporating the voices of contemporary artists and their critical reflections on photojournalism.

The exhibition is accompanied by a multi-authored catalogue, winner of the College Art Association’s 2021 Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award. “Life Magazine and the Power of Photography” is co-organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Princeton University Art Museum.


Visit the Monroe Gallery of Photography exhibition "The LIFE Photographers"

Saturday, August 27, 2022

Coming in October: See ‘Life Magazine and the Power of Photography’ at the MFA Boston

 Via Boston.com

August 26, 2022

3 frames of woman welders at work in 1943
Flame Burner Ann Zarik, taken in 1943. Photo by Margaret Bourke-White, Life picture collection

The museum displays photos from the archives of the publication that shaped American photojournalism.

The Museum of Fine Arts will display dozens of original photos from Life magazine’s archives in “Life Magazine and the Power of Photography” this fall, highlighting Life’s cultural impact and the way its photos shaped American media throughout the mid-twentieth century.

Life printed in some capacity from 1883 through 2000. Published independently until 1936, Life was a light entertainment magazine heavy on illustrations, featuring the likes of Charles Dana Gibson and Norman Rockwell. Publisher Henry Luce bought the publication in 1936, turning it into the notable American photographic magazine we know it as today. The first of its kind, it defined photojournalism and chronicled historic moments of the last century, like the moon landing and the Birmingham civil rights demonstrations. Life was the first to publish Alfred Eisenstaedt’s “V-J Day in Times Square.”

The exhibit will display original photos alongside objects from Life’s paper archives like assignment outlines, memos, and layout drafts, taking a close look at how Life photo essays were constructed from assignment all the way through to completion. In peering behind the scenes of the magazine’s creation, the exhibit also examines how Life shaped conversations around topics like race, war, technology, and national identity. 

“Life Magazine and the Power of Photography” also displays three immersive contemporary works interspersed throughout the exhibit—a multimedia installation by Alfredo Jaar, screen prints and photos by Alexandra Bell, and a new commission by Julia Wachtel all examine modern news media and themes like implicit biases.

The exhibit features the work of photographers like Margaret Bourke-White, Larry Burrows, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Frank Dandridge, Yousuf Karsh, Gordon Parks, and W. Eugene Smith, and runs Oct. 9 through Jan. 16 in the Ann and Graham Gund Gallery.


Related: Monroe Gallery Exhibition "The LIFE Photographers"

LIFE Magazine Show Opens At Monroe Gallery Of Photography

Wednesday, August 3, 2022

Richard Skipper Celebrates the world of Bill Eppridge with Adrienne Aurichio

screen shot of Richard Skipper Celebrates the world of Bill Eppridge with Adrienne Aurichio YouTube page


Monroe Gallery is pleased to welcome Adrienne Aurichio to Santa Fe on September 30 for a talk about the life and career of legendary photojournalist Bill Eppridge. The talk opens a new exhibition of Eppridge's photographs that features many new, rare early works.

September 30 - November 20, 2022

 

Monday, June 27, 2022

The Truth in Tears….

 Via Joe McNally's Blog

June 27, 2022

Navy CPO Graham Jackson as he Plays 'Goin' Home' on the accordion while President Franklin D. Roosevelt's body is carried from The Warm Springs Foundation, where he died suddenly of a stroke on April12, 1945


Ed Clark/Life Picture Collection: Navy CPO Graham Jackson as he Plays 'Goin' Home' on the accordion while President Franklin D. Roosevelt's body is carried from The Warm Springs Foundation, where he died suddenly of a stroke on April12, 1945 Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography

One of the proudest associations I have enjoyed in my career is my long time affiliation with the Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe. The gallery represents historically important photojournalism, and Sid and Michelle Monroe are fierce advocates of the importance of photojournalism, and equally fierce defenders of the artists who create the work they show on their walls. They are also amongst the most knowledgeable people in this industry, steeped in the history, legends and lore of this art and craft.

On Friday, July 1, they launch an important exhibit. “Imagine a World Without Photojournalism,” which is a date that coincides with the gallery’s 20th anniversary in Santa Fe. Their walls will simply vibrate with famous, important, provocative, challenging, memorable, sad and glorious slices of our life and times. The images enrich, enrage, dismay, and soothe the soul. Your eyes and heart will never be the same after seeing this collection of work.

Sid and Michelle are dear friends, and they know me well by now. Whenever I sell an image through the gallery, I never ask for the money. I leave it with them, building a bank account over time, at the gallery. When I have enough stashed to afford a print, I choose one. Such as CPO Jackson, above, in the banner photo. I have it on my wall, and see it every day.

Made by the formidable LIFE staffer Ed Clark, it depicts Navy CPO Graham Jackson as he plays “Goin’ Home” on the accordion while President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s body is carried from The Warm Springs Foundation, where he died suddenly of a stroke on April 12, 1945. According to accounts, he had a personal relationship with FDR, thus his grief, so poignantly manifest in this frame, is both about the loss of a leader, and a friend.

The picture is just as searing, relevant and heart wrenching today as it was the day Mr. Jackson was playing that accordion, and Ed Clark clicked a shutter button. Without the hearts and minds of photojournalists, a picture like this doesn’t exist. Without the photographers who are risking their lives in Ukraine, we don’t know and thus can’t feel the weight and horror of the madness raging there.

Photojournalists are often not welcome, as we show, in unflinching fashion, things many don’t want to see or recognize. But visual storytelling is more necessary than ever. As our country devolves into vengeful tribalism, and skepticism flourishes, nourished by unalloyed ignorance, I look at CPO Jackson’s face from long ago. There is truth in the tears.


More tk….

Sunday, June 19, 2022

Monroe Gallery exhibit looks at history through Life’s photographs

 Via The Albuquerque Journal

By Kathaleen Roberts    June 19, 2022

black and white photograph of The Beatles lounging on pool chairs at swimming pool in Miami, 1964

The Beatles, Miami 1964,” at a private residence after their appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” (Courtesy of Bob Gomel)

SANTA FE – When Sidney and Michelle Monroe stepped into the workplace of the great photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt decades ago, they were more than intimidated.

“There’s a picture of Hitler and Mussolini shaking hands in his office,” Michelle Monroe said. “We’re not peers.

“Honestly, we could barely catch our breath, we were so star-struck.”

That meeting in New York’s Time-Life building would launch a career of exhibiting some of the most pioneering photojournalists in the country. Monroe Gallery will celebrate the glory days of Life magazine with about 40 images by such photographic luminaries as Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White, Bob Gomel and Bill Ray through June 26.

Known as the father of photojournalism, Eisenstaedt is best recognized for his image of a sailor kissing a nurse in a dance-like dip during Times Square’s V-J celebration in 1945. When the Monroes approached him, he had never shown his work in a gallery before.

In 1963, Life assigned the photographer a photo essay on life in Paris.

“He didn’t know what he could do that Henri Cartier-Bresson hadn’t done,” Sidney Monroe said.

While he was walking the streets, Eisenstaedt spotted a playground with a puppet show of “St. George and the Dragon.” He crawled under the stage and began shooting the crowd from beneath the drape. The photographer captured the children in the audience, their facial expressions tumbling from delight into fear and horror.

“It’s almost timeless, aside from their clothing, it could be any time,” Sidney said. “It’s a great example of what a photographer does.”

Gomel was already in Miami to shoot the Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston fight when his editors asked him to photograph the Beatles. The foursome had flown south to relax immediately after their 1964 “Ed Sullivan Show” debut. Gomel shot them sunbathing at a private home.

“The editor of Life was really interested in the world of pop culture,” Sidney said. “The Beatles would sell so many magazines.”

Carl Mydans had been captured by the invading Japanese when the Philippines fell during World War II. He was freed during a prisoner exchange in 1943.

In 1945, Mydans photographed the Japanese formal surrender on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri in front of Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

Mydans had also shot the famous image of MacArthur wading onto a Philippines beach.

“When news came of the formal surrender, it was bedlam,” Sidney Monroe said. Mydans approached a MacArthur aide to make sure he gained entry to the ship.

The photographer captured the iconic moment while he was straddling a cannon. As soon as he shot the photo, a sailor pulled him off.

“The U.S. officials came in wearing their day-to-day khakis, much to the displeasure of the Japanese,” Sidney Monroe said.

Bourke-White was the first photographer hired by Life.

When she photographed Mahatma Gandhi in 1946, he insisted she learn to spin in order to have an audience with him.

“He had no time to digress from his campaign to free India from British oppression,” Sidney said. “She needed him and he knew he needed her.”

Founded by Henry Luce, publisher of Time magazine, Life was long one of the most popular and imitated of American magazines, selling millions of copies a week. Published weekly from 1936 to 1972, it emphasized photography.

“They’re all in their very defining moments,” Sidney Monroe said. “The moments are in our heads because they’re part of our history.”

If you go

WHAT: “The LIFE Photographers”

WHERE: Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, Santa Fe

WHEN: Through June 26

CONTACT: monroegallery.com, 505-992-0800