Once Upon a Time… Veteran photog Steve Schapiro serves up poignant history

Steve Schapiro: Boy with Flag, Selma March, 1965

Via The Santa Fe Reporter
July 1, 2014
By Enrique Limón


 More than 50 iconic photographs by LIFE veteran Steve Schapiro go on display this Saturday at Monroe Gallery’s Once Upon a Time in America.


Over the last five decades, Schapiro has documented the transcendent and the mundane surrounding some of the country’s greatest battles, accomplishments and cultural milestones—ranging from Robert F.Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign to candid moments depicting Marlon Brando on the set of The Godfather.


 A lifelong practitioner of the craft, Schapiro developed a love for photography at age 9, when he would try to emulate the shots of the father of photojournalism, Henri Cartier-Bresson.


“This is a show about America and different aspects of America,” Schapiro tells SFR from his Chicago home.


 Aspects like 1965’s MLK-led Selma to Montgomery marches.


 “It was really a turning point, in the sense that so many people were mobilized,” Schapiro reminisces, “because, really what a lot of the Civil Rights movement was about was trying to energize people in the South—particularly black people—to vote and to feel that it was safe to vote and that they could vote, despite the fact that the culture of the times was against them.”


Witnessing several interruptions and threats of violence during the marches, Schapiro kept on shooting and at one point captured a youth resting under the shadow of an American flag.


“It’s symbolic of the spirit that kids have regarding their feelings that things were only going to get better, and that nonviolence was the proper course to take."


That particular picture wasn’t selected by magazine editors at the time, but was like many in his oeuvre, one that came to be by chance after he went through his old contact sheets.


 “Sometimes you look at pictures and you don’t know why they’re iconic or why people relate to them,” he says. “It’s a subtle thing, but there are just moments where all of that happens and the image presents a statement that goes in some ways beyond what you’re seeing.”


 Once Upon a Time in America
Opening Reception with Steve Schapiro: 5-7 pm Saturday, July 5
Exhibition continues through September 21, 2014
 Monroe Gallery of Photography
112 Don Gaspar Ave., 992-0800
www.monroegallery.com

STEVE SCHAPIRO: Once Upon A Time In America

Steve Schapiro: Entering Montgomery, Selma March, 1965

One of the most respected American documentary photographers, Steve Schapiro has photographed American history, and the fractured fabric of contemporary American life, over the last five decades. The list of people Steve Schapiro has photographed during his career reads like a Who's Who of the most influential politicians, celebrities and newsmakers in contemporary American history.


Join us Saturday, July 5, from 5 - 7 PM for a public reception with Steve Schapiro for the opening of the new exhibition "Once Upon A Time in America".


Steve Schapiro discovered photography at age of nine at a summer camp. Excited by the camera's potential, he would spend the next decades prowling the streets of his native New York trying to emulate the work of the great French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. Schapiro was a disciple of the great photographer W. Eugene Smith, and shared Smith's passion for black and white documentary work. From the beginning of Schapiro's career, he had already set a mission for himself: to chronicle the "American Life". His career in photography began in 1960 with personal documentary projects on "Arkansas Migrant Workers" and "Narcotics Addiction in East Harlem". Schapiro became involved in many civil rights stories including the Selma March and covering Martin Luther King; he traveled with Bobby Kennedy on his Senate campaign and Presidential campaign; and did photo essays on Haight Ashbury, the Pine Ridge Sioux Indian Reservation, and Protest in America. He photographed Andy Warhol and the New York art scene, John and Jacqueline Kennedy, poodles, beauty parlors, and performances at the famous Apollo Theater in New York. He also collaborated on projects for record covers and related art. As picture magazines declined in the 1970's and 80's he continued documentary work but also produced advertising material, publicity stills and posters for films, including, The Godfather, Rambo, The Way We Were, Risky Business, Taxi Driver, and Midnight Cowboy.

Related: The Santa Fe Reporter  Once Upon a Time… Veteran photog Steve Schapiro serves up poignant history