A beautiful pursuit: Monroe Gallery exhibit looks through the lens of noted photographer Tony Vaccaro

 Via The Albuquerque Journal

August 4, 2024

By Kathaleen Roberts

Tony Vaccaro photographed a world of beauty from a crucible of pain.

He photographed World War II from a soldier’s eye, documenting its brutality and horror. After carrying his camera across battlefields, he became one of the most sought-after photographers of his day, capturing everyone from Pablo Picasso to Ali MacGraw on film.

Open at Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography, “Tony Vaccaro: The Pursuit of Beauty” includes more than 40 photographs dating from 1944 to 1979.

Born in Pennsylvania, 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 8 years old and he was raised by an uncaring aunt and an abusive uncle. His love of photography emerged in Bonefro, where he began taking pictures with a box camera at age 10.

When World War II broke out, he returned to the States, living with his sister in a New York suburb, where he joined his high school camera club. A teacher spotted his talent and guided him through a year of apprenticeship.

Drafted at 21, Vaccaro was determined to continue photographing in combat. He fought on the front lines for 272 days, camera in hand. He entered Germany in 1944. He developed his photographs in combat helmets at night, hanging the negatives from tree branches.

In 1945, he photographed Adolf Hitler’s both sinister and beautiful window at the dictator’s retreat in the Bavarian Alps.

“That massive window was filled with a very thick pane of glass,” said Sidney Monroe, the gallery’s co-owner. “It’s a haunting picture. It’s the ultimate conquest at the end of the war.”

In the years after the war, Vaccaro remained in Germany to photograph the rebuilding of the country for Stars and Stripes magazine. He returned to the U.S. in 1950 and launched a career as a commercial photographer. He worked for Look, Life, Harper’s Bazaar, Town and Country, Newsweek and more.

After the war, he said he had seen enough carnage. He traded beauty for brutality.

In 1960, Vaccaro spent two weeks at Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiú home, photographing her for Look magazine.

“O’Keeffe was pretty notorious for not wanting to be interviewed or photographed,” Monroe said. “So Tony comes out with a writer and she gave them the cold shoulder. O’Keeffe almost wouldn’t talk to him.

“Tony told us at dinner the conversation shifted to bullfighting. O’Keeffe was a fan of a famous Mexican bullfighter that he had photographed. That broke the ice. They bonded and formed a lifelong friendship.”

The photograph captures O’Keeffe’s legendary iconography, the skull between the canales and her rock collection scattered across a shelf.

“She’s in black and wearing her famous belt,” Monroe said. “It incorporates everything we think of when we think of O’Keeffe.”

The show marks the first time the photo has been exhibited.

“Most of the photographs were never published,” Monroe said. “We encouraged him while he was still alive to go to the files.”

Tony Vaccaro

The Guggenheim Hat, New York, 1960

Vaccaro’s famous 1960 “Guggenheim Hat” photograph for Look magazine combines architecture with fashion to make art. The model’s hat mirrors the forms of the Guggenheim Museum.

“The Guggenheim had just really opened,” Monroe said. “At the time, it was sort of an instant classic.”

The model in “Anja on Park Avenue” became Vaccaro’s wife. Her heavily-patterned gown mimics the lights on the Pan Am building behind her. The Swedish designer Marimekko was known for its bold patterning. The photo has never been seen before.

In Venice, Italy, Vaccaro photographed Peggy Guggenheim leaving her home in a gondola in 1968. She was starting her museum in Venice.

Tony Vaccaro

Peggy Guggenheim, Venice, Italy, 1968

“She had a big house there that held her art collection,” Monroe said. “She was fabulously eccentric.”

The photo captures an angry Guggenheim hiding something beneath her blue cape.

Her yard featured a large bronze sculpture of a rearing horse.

The horse has a penis and the penis was removable.

A school group was about to enter the yard.

“She removed the penis,” Monroe said. “That is under the cape. He wanted her to show it; that’s why she looks mad. It’s a wonderful marriage of subject and place.”

In 2022, Monroe and his wife and business partner Michelle celebrated Vaccaro’s 100th birthday in New York. The city of New York declared it “Tony Vaccaro Day” and he was feted at his favorite Italian restaurant. He died eight days later, after surviving the Battle of Normandy and two bouts of COVID. He attributed his longevity to “blind luck, red wine and determination.”

Tony Vaccaro

Safe Trip! 1957

'Tony Vaccaro: The Pursuit of Beauty'

WHEN: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily; through Sept. 15

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

MORE INFO: monroegallery.com; 505-992-0800

John Loengard 1934 - 2020

John Loengard: Brassai's Eye, Paris, 1981

LIFE magazine photographer John Loengard passed away May 24 in New York City at age 86.

 

John Loengard was born in New York City in 1934, and received his first assignment from LIFE magazine in 1956, while still an undergraduate at Harvard College. He joined the magazine's staff in 1961, and in 1978 was instrumental in its re-birth as a monthly, serving as picture editor until 1987. Under his guidance in 1986, LIFE received the first award for "Excellence in Photography" given by the American Society of Magazine Editors.

 After LIFE magazine suspended weekly publication in 1972, Loengard joined Time Incorporated’s Magazine Development Group as the picture editor of LIFE Special Reports. He was also picture editor of People magazine during its conception in 1973 and the first three months of its publication in 1974

In 2005, American Photo magazine identified Loengard as “One of the 100 most influential people in photography,” and in 2018 he was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame.

In 1996, Loengard received a Lifetime Achievement Award "in recognition of his multifaceted contributions to photojournalism," from Photographic Administrators Inc.

Loengard authored ten books, including: Pictures Under Discussion, which won the Ansel Adams Award for book photography in 1987, Celebrating the Negative, and Georgia O'Keeffe at Ghost Ranch. His book, LIFE Photographers: What They Saw, was named one of the year's ten top books for 1998 by the New York Times

John Loengard: Henry Moore's 'Sheep Piece", 1983

John Loengard: Georgia O'Keeffe with basket, 1966

 

JOHN LOENGARD: MOMENT BY MOMENT

A new monograph on the iconic American Life photographer John Loengard

As John Loengard writes in the preface to this monograph, “The truth is: a good photograph cannot be repeated. This may be why a photograph of a brief moment, an instant in time, can hold our interest forever.” Moment by Moment is an intriguing selection of many moments in John Loengard’s long career. His subjects include movie stars, writers, politicians, artists, and other photographers, as well as normal people engaged in a host of extraordinary activities―or, rather, typical activities rendered unforgettable or of enduring interest by the photographer’s vision. From a shimmering Marilyn Monroe to a brooding T. S. Eliot, from a now almost sinister silhouette of Bill Cosby to an iconic shot of the Beatles, from an Etonian to a boy in the streets of Manchester, as well as ranchers, sweepers, picnickers, and fellow photographers, Loengard’s vision moves and delights us with his humanity and artistry.

Moment by Moment enlarges our understanding and deepens our appreciation of Loengard’s photographs. 135 duotone photographs.

View John Loengard's photographs at Monroe Gallery here.

The Telegraph: The man who shot The Beatles, Ronald Reagan and Louis Armstrong

WCSU exhibit features Eppridge photo chronicle of Beatles’ 1964 US visit

        
Via WCSU.edu

DANBURY, CONN. — A remarkable photographic chronicle by legendary Life Magazine photojournalist Bill Eppridge of the Beatles’ historic 1964 visit to the United States will be featured in a Western Connecticut State University Art Gallery exhibition that will open Tuesday, Jan. 19, and continue through Saturday, March 13, 2016, at the university’s Visual and Performing Arts Center.

A collection of 55 black-and-white photographs taken by Eppridge during his coverage for Life of the British rock group’s visit to New York and Washington from Feb. 7 through 12, 1964, will be shown in the exhibition, “The Beatles: Six Days That Changed the World,” sponsored by the WCSU Department of Art. An opening reception will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 23, in the Art Gallery at the arts center on the WCSU Westside campus, 43 Lake Ave. Extension in Danbury. Reservations to attend the free public reception may be made on the VPAC events Web page at www.wcsuvpac.eventbrite.com.

Eppridge, who resided in New Milford in his later years, died in October 2013 in Danbury after an extraordinary career as a photojournalist spanning 60 years. He is widely recognized for capturing iconic images of contemporary history including the Beatles’ Feb. 9, 1964, appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and the poignant image on June 6, 1968, of a busboy kneeling beside the mortally wounded Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in a Los Angeles hotel kitchen moments after his assassination. “You are not just a photojournalist,” he said in recalling the Kennedy image. “You’re a historian.”
Yet the WCSU exhibition of selections from his 1964 Beatles tour photo shoot, which consumed more than 90 rolls of film and 3,000 photographs, would have been impossible without the mysterious recovery of these images seven years after they went missing and the painstaking work of Eppridge’s editor and wife, Adrienne Aurichio, to review and organize this vast photo archive into a comprehensive record of the Beatles’ tour as it unfolded.

Aurichio recalled in a 2014 essay for CBS News marking the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ “Ed Sullivan Show” appearance that the 26-year-old Eppridge found himself in the right place on the morning of Feb. 7, 1964, to draw the assignment from Life Magazine photography director Dick Pollard to cover the Beatles’ arrival that day at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. He followed the Beatles as Life’s photo correspondent throughout the first six days of their U.S. tour, shooting spontaneous images documenting performances, rehearsals and private moments during the tour that established the group as an international rock ‘n’ roll sensation.

At the time, Life Magazine published just four of the images from Eppridge’s assignment, and the original film submitted to the Time-Life photo lab for processing could not be located when he attempted several months later to retrieve the images. By his account, at least seven years passed before the film turned up on his desk with no explanation of how it had been recovered.

Aurichio’s role in re-creating Eppridge’s Life photo chronicle of the 1964 Beatles tour began in 1993 when she came across one of his prints from the shoot while researching photographs for a magazine project. Intrigued at the prospect of discovering more photos from the Beatles visit, she soon learned the full story of Eppridge’s recovered film chronicle, which provided the images featured in the WCSU exhibition and in the book, “The Beatles: Six Days That Changed the World,” released in 2014 by Rizzoli Publishing. In his acknowledgments for the book, Eppridge noted that Aurichio played a critical part as co-editor in “piecing together my story. I relied on her vision and experience as an editor to research and unravel the photographs, and then pull them together in chronological order.”

Aurichio observed that Eppridge’s photographs of the Beatles’ 1964 visit reflect the fact that “he made pictures as they happened, never staging anything. The pictures are so personal. You know that there were other photographers and media around, but Bill had a way of focusing in on his subjects — excluding the distractions. You feel like Bill was the only photographer there.”

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1938, Eppridge grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, and became interested in photography at an early age, beginning his career as a sports photographer for a local newspaper at the age of 15. In 1959 he earned his first award for photography in the National Press Photographers Association Pictures of the Year competition. The following year he graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism with honors as “College Photographer of the Year.” Upon graduation he landed an internship at Life Magazine, which led to a yearlong around-the-world photo assignment for National Geographic and a coveted position as staff photographer for Life from 1964 to 1972. During his tenure at Life, he covered many of the most noteworthy public figures and historical events of the era, from the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War to the Woodstock music festival and drug addiction in New York.

After Life closed at the end of 1972, Eppridge served as a photojournalist for other national publications including Time and Sports Illustrated magazines. The numerous professional recognitions for his work included the Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award, the highest honor given by the National Press Photographers Association. His photographs have been shown in exhibitions across the United States, featured in a major show at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and included in shows at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

For more information, call the Department of Art at (203) 837-8403, the Art Gallery at (203) 837-8889, or the Office of University Relations at (203) 837-8486.


Western Connecticut State University offers outstanding faculty in a range of quality academic programs. Our diverse university community provides students an enriching and supportive environment that takes advantage of the unique cultural offerings of Western Connecticut and New York. Our vision: To be an affordable public university with the characteristics of New England’s best small private universities.

Bill Eppridges' photography will be included in Monroe Gallery's exhibit at photo la, January 21 - 24, 2016; and is available on line here.

Joe McNally: A Life Behind the Lens

Via The Annenberg Center

Joe McNally

A Life Behind the Lens

From Thursday, January 16th, 2014

 

 

 

As a globetrotting magazine photographer, Joe McNally’s creative use of light has been the most notable aspect of his approach to shooting. Whether covering an editorial assignment for magazines such as TIME, Fortune and The New York Times Sunday Magazine, or shooting ad campaigns and corporate work for Fortune 500 companies, McNally embraces the power that light plays on a photo subject.
 

Show more...

The recipient of numerous photo awards, McNally has been a contract photographer for Sports Illustrated, a staff photographer at LIFE and is an ongoing 25-year contributor to National Geographic. He teaches his craft globally and has penned several best-selling photo books. McNally also created “Faces of Ground Zero – Giant Polaroid Collection.” The resulting exhibit and book raised approximately $2 million for relief efforts.

Watch Joe as he discusses the trials and tribulations of his career, the problems and personalities he dealt with and the overriding sense of humor that gets him through the day.

Joe McNally's photographs will be exhibited at Monroe Gallery of Photography October 3 - November 23, 2014
 

Bob Gomel: “Photography is all about having something to say before you pick the camera up to your eye and push the button”

Malcolm X photographs Cassius Clay on February 25, 1964, the night the boxer knocked out Sonny Liston to become heavyweight champion. The next day Clay revealed that he was a member of the Nation of Islam.


Via New York University Alumni Magazine

Former Life photographer Bob Gomel reflects on the many American stories told with his camera

by Andrea Crawford

A brash 22-year-old dancing around the ring, his gloved fists raised in victory as he proclaims himself “the king of the world”: This may be the most famous image of Muhammad Ali when he was still Cassius Clay—and had just defeated heavyweight champion Sonny Liston in one of boxing’s most stunning upsets. Bob Gomel was there shooting photos for Life magazine, having journeyed to Miami Beach in February 1964 to shadow Clay in the days leading up to the bout. But it was an image Gomel (STERN ’55) captured during the afterparty—of Malcolm X snapping a photo of the new world champion—that the Library of Congress deemed worthy of acquiring last year. From behind the bar, the former Nation of Islam spokesperson smiles broadly as he holds the camera to his face. The seated Clay wears a tuxedo and bow tie, his hands resting in loose fists on the counter. He appears to mug for the camera.

It’s a moment of connection between friends, revealing a playful side of two powerful men whose public personas were often serious, angry, or in Clay’s case, downright crazy. The photograph also bares a secret between them: The boxer had been persuaded by promoters not to announce his conversion to Islam before the fight. The following day, he would make the announcement to the world.

Getting behind the scenes and using photographs to tell a story was what Life did best, and it was what attracted Gomel to the picture magazines. As a young man, he turned down other journalism jobs and went without work for nearly a year waiting to break in. When the chance came, Gomel made the most of it. From 1959 to 1969—the magazine’s last decade as the country’s premier newsweekly—he photographed a long, impressive list of world leaders (John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Nikita Khrushchev, Patrice Lumumba, David Ben-Gurion, Jawaharlal Nehru), actors (Marilyn Monroe, Warren Beatty, Joan Crawford), athletes (Arthur Ashe, Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, Arnold Palmer, Joe Namath), and other personalities of the era (Jane Jacobs, Robert Moses, Benjamin Spock). When President-elect Kennedy took a walk with 3-year-old Caroline on the day her brother, John Jr., was born; when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his speech at the March on Washington; when the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show; Gomel captured it all on film.

top: Perhaps Gomel’s most famous photograph was this bird’s-eye image of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s casket lying in state at the Capitol Rotunda in 1969. Gomel rigged strobe lights around the 200-foot dome, strung a wire with a pulley to place the camera in the middle, and ran a zip cord—to trigger the camera—to where he would be standing with the rest of the press. The resulting photograph appeared on the cover of Life magazine. above left: This image of President John F. Kennedy inspecting the space capsule in 1962 remains one of Gomel’s favorites. “It’s John Kennedy, but it’s not the way we anticipate seeing him,” Gomel says. “It’s just one of those off-guard moments that nobody focuses on.” above right: Marilyn Monroe attends a party for Broadway’s The Sound of Music in 1961, one year before her death.

Like any enduring image, says Ben Breard, who featured many of Gomel’s works in an exhibition earlier this year at Afterimage Gallery in Dallas, the photographs are important not only because of their historical and cultural significance. “Of course, there’s an element of being at the right place at the right time to capture the moment, but then you’ve got to do it artistically,” Breard says. The images reveal the photographer’s sense of humor and humanity. “There’s a positive feel to his work,” Breard adds. “It’s uplifting. Even though those were hard times the country went through, [there’s] a hopeful aspect to everything.”

Born in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx, Gomel discovered photography as a boy, struck by an image taken by his teacher hanging in his classroom at the Ethical Culture School on Central Park West. It was a black-and-white picture of a manhole cover on a cobblestone street with some pigeons around it. “I sat next to that picture, and I was just entranced by it,” he says. Gomel joined the teacher’s photography club and began learning on a borrowed camera. When World War II ended, he got a job delivering groceries by bicycle to buy his first camera and soon convinced his parents—his father was an optometrist; his mother, an NYU graduate, was a teacher—to let him appropriate a closet for his darkroom.

 

 

top: John Lennon cannonballs into a pool in 1964 as his fellow Beatles Paul McCartney (center) and Ringo Starr brace for the inevitable splash. the band was in miami for their second live performance on the ed sullivan show—which was watched by 70 million americans.above Left: Famed pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock—best-selling author of the common sense book of baby and child care—is entertained by two young patients during an examination in September 1962.above right: After filming concluded, but before the release of The Graduate, Gomel spent a day with Dustin Hoffman—hanging out with his girlfriend, posing for a sculptor, and, as seen here, picking up his unemployment check.

 

When Gomel arrived at his mother’s alma mater in 1950, he began working for student publications, covering basketball games, which NYU then played at Madison Square Garden. There, he befriended “the fellows who worked the night shift” for the Daily Mirror, the Daily News, the Associated Press, and UPI (then called ACME Newspictures), and he started tagging along on their assignments. After graduating from NYU and 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.

At Life he was able to shoot the stories that appealed to him, and the recent exhibition included some of his favorites. For one photo-essay, he documented what happens to the family dog when the children return to school, highlighting one forlorn basset hound, in particular. For another series, he arranged for humorist Art Buchwald to go back to Marine boot camp incognito for a week, to relive his days as a recruit. The humor and power of these images endure, even for those too young to know Art Buchwald.

Gomel, who later worked in advertising shooting national campaigns for clients such as Volkswagen, Pan Am, Merrill Lynch, and Shell Oil, also tested technological and creative boundaries at Life. His image of the Manhattan skyline during a blackout in November 1965 is striking, with a full moon illuminating the dark sky. But from his vantage point on the Brooklyn waterfront that night, the moon was behind him. “It occurred to me that the only way we’re all getting along this evening is because we have a full moon,” he says. “I wanted to tell that…in a single picture.” So he rewound his film, changed lenses, turned around and clicked, placing the glowing orb just where he wanted it to be in the dark quadrant of the frame. After a long debate, Gomel says, the editors decided to run it—the first double-exposure Life used in a news story.

Gomel believes photographers have the responsibility to be truthful reporters but also must be clear about what story they’re trying to tell. “Photography is all about having something to say before you pick the camera up to your eye and push the button,” he says. “Are you happy about something, displeased about something? And if so, how are you going to express that on a piece of film?”

More of Bob Gomel's photographs here.

2011 Lucie Awards: Bill Eppridge is Honoree for Achivement in Photojournalism

The Lucie Awards is the annual gala ceremony honoring the greatest achievements in photography. The photography community from countries around the globe will pay tribute to the most outstanding photography achievements presented at the Gala Awards ceremony. Each year, the Advisory Board nominates deserving individuals across a variety of categories who will be honored during the Lucie Awards ceremony. Once the nominations have been received, the votes are tallied and an honoree in each category is identified.

The 2011 Honoree for Achievement in Photojournalism is Bill Eppridge.

Bill Eppridge already owned a Kodak Brownie Star Flash 620 camera when one day an itinerant photographer with a pony stopped by his house in Richmond, Virginia and asked to photograph Bill and his younger sister. Eppridge was only eight but it was then that he decided he wanted to be a photographer - he could have a big camera, travel, meet lots of interesting people, and have his own pony. That was just the hint of a lifelong career in photojournalism covering some of the most important people and events in history.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1938, Eppridge spent his early childhood in Virginia, and Tennessee. The family moved to Delaware when he was 14. A self-taught photographer, he began shooting for his school newspaper and yearbook, and then sports for the Wilmington Star newspaper. Eppridge was only fifteen, but this early exposure to a real newsroom gave him a taste for journalism.

Eppridge grew up during World War II looking at Life magazine. He was entranced by the work of their war photographers, and later influenced by Gordon Parks and Leonard McCombe. Their pictures looked effortless, as if they just happened in front of the camera and the photographers grabbed them. It was that style of photography that fascinated him –an entire story was told with one significant image.

In 1960 Eppridge graduated from the University of Missouri, Journalism program headed by Clif Edom who had begun the famous Missouri Photojournalism Workshop with Roy Stryker of the Farm Security Administration. While still a student, Eppridge was accepted into that workshop twice during his college years. He got a career boost when his photograph of a white horse against a tornadic sky won first prize for pictorial in the NPPA Pictures of the Year competition in 1959. He was twice named NPPA College Photographer of the Year and awarded internships at Life magazine.


Eppridge’s first professional assignment after graduation was a nine-month documentary trip around the world for National Geographic magazine. After that, he began shooting for Life. During the year 1964 while on a contract basis with the magazine, Eppridge was there when the Beatles first stepped off the plane in the United States, and chronicled their effect on this country. He spent several days photographing a young Barbra Streisand on the verge of stardom, covered Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan who was to sing at his first Newport Folk Festival, and immediately afterward he was sent to Mississippi where the bodies of slain civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner had been found buried in an earthen dam. Eppridge stayed for several days and photographed the solemn funeral of James Chaney. He soon earned a place on the masthead of Life.

As a Life staff photographer for most of the 1960s, until that magazine folded in 1972, Eppridge worked alongside many of the legends he had admired while growing up – Alfred Eisenstadt, Gordon Parks, Carl Mydans, Ralph Morse, and Larry Burrows.

Eppridge’s unique style of photojournalism brought him history-making assignments - he covered Latin American revolutions, the Vietnam war, and Woodstock. Eppridge was the only photographer admitted into Marilyn Lovell’s home as her husband, Jim, orbited the moon in the crippled Apollo 13 spacecraft. His landmark photographic essay on drug use, “Needle Park- Heroin Addiction” won the National Headliner’s Award. He was given unprecedented access to the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution in Leningrad and photographed the entire Baltic fleet as it was assembled in the Neva River, something that no westerner had ever seen.

One of Eppridge’s most memorable and poignant essays was his coverage of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, first in 1966, and then again on the road with RFK during the 1968 presidential campaign. His photograph of the wounded Senator on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel kitchen seconds after he was shot has been described as a modern Pieta.

After Life ceased publication in 1972, Eppridge joined Sports Illustrated where he continued to use his photojournalist talent to cover both Winter and Summer Olympics; America’s Cup sailing; the environmental disasters of the Mount St. Helen’s volcanic eruption, and the devastating Exxon Valdez oil spill and aftermath. His sporting essays and wildlife photography took him around the world to the Arctic, Africa, Asia, and the Alps.

Eppridge has received some of the highest honors his profession bestows – the NPPA Joseph A. Sprague Award, and The Missouri School of Journalism Medal of Honor. He has been a respected force in training a new generation of photojournalists for more than twenty years at both the Missouri Photojournalism Workshop, and the Eddie Adams Photography Workshop. His photographs have been exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum of American History; The High Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Visa Pour L’Image, and in galleries and museums around the world.

Eppridge currently lives in Western Connecticut with his wife Adrienne and his cat "Bear". After nearly six decades as a photojournalist he is, even now, never without his camera, and is currently photographing several projects including an essay about the new American farmers - but he still doesn’t own a pony.

Several of Bill Eppridge's historic photographs are featured in the exhibition "History's Big Picture" through September 25. A major solo exhibition celebrating Eppridge's Lucie Award will feature many of his most significan photo essays, and will open at Monroe Gallery of Photography September 30 and continue through November 20, 2011.

Andreas Feininger: Nature and the Architect at the National Gallery of Canada

Andreas Feininger, Reflection on a Car, 1980. Gelatin silver print, 40.4 x 50.3 cm; image: 38 x 48.2 cm. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Gift of the Estate of Gertrud E. Feininger, New York, 2009. Photo: Andreas Feininger © AndreasFeiningerArchive.com, c/o Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen


Via artdaily.org

OTTAWA.- Two years ago, the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) received an extraordinary donation of 252 exquisite photographs by Andreas Feininger, one of the greatest modernist photographers. Best known for his dynamic urban views of Manhattan and Chicago, Feininger left a legacy on his 1999 death at 93 of 346 Life magazine photo-essays, thousands of photographs and more than 50 publications. Beginning this Saturday, until August 28, visitors to the NGC can enjoy 27 of these remarkable works in Gallery C202b.


"Andreas Feininger's photographs reveal his technical virtuosity and his incisive eye," said NGC director Marc Mayer. "We are grateful to his family for the gift of these important works."

Modernist photographer Andreas Feininger's vast body of work spans a period of nearly six decades. From his dynamic urban views of New York to his extreme close-ups of natural forms, Feininger's work shows his instinct for graphic forms and patterning, and his ability to highlight the sculptural qualities of objects. His urban scenes convey his excitement at the visual complexity of city life, while his macro-photographs of shells and bones, often interpreted through a highly surrealist lens, demonstrate his fascination with the elegant precision of nature.

Feininger's vision is unified by an attraction to the organizing principles behind both constructed and natural forms. After studying at the Bauhaus in Germany, and training as an architect, Feininger worked in Paris and Stockholm before establishing his career in the United States, first as a photographer for the Black Star Picture Agency and then with Life magazine. He was technically inventive, devising his own super-telephoto and super-close-up cameras. He even built his own radio in 1927, seen in his self-portrait of that year. This selection of 27 photographs reveals the keen insight of a photographer who never ceased his quest for order and beauty in the world around him.

Several other exquisite photographs by Feininger will be included in the exhibition Made in America 1900-1950. Photographs from the National Gallery of Canada, opening this Fall.