Documentary filmmaker Nancy Buirski won Emmy and Peabody Awards for “The Loving Story,” about a Virginia couple’s successful challenge to a ban on interracial marriage, has died at 78.

 Via The New York Times

September 1, 2023

Grey Villet: Mildred and Richard Loving, 1965

Nancy Buirski, an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker whose eye was honed as a still photographer and picture editor, died on Wednesday at her home in Manhattan. She was 78.

After founding the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in 1998 at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and directing it for a decade, Ms. Buirski (pronounced BURR-skee) made her own first documentary, “The Loving Story,” in 2011.

The film explored the case of Mildred and Richard Loving, who faced imprisonment because their interracial marriage in 1958 was illegal in Virginia. (She was part-Black and part-Native American, and he was white.)

Their challenge to the law resulted in a landmark civil rights ruling by the United States Supreme Court in 1967 that voided state anti-miscegenation laws.

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"Years earlier, as a picture editor on the international desk at The New York Times, Ms. Buirski was credited with choosing the image that won the newspaper its first Pulitzer Prize for photography, in 1994. After seeking a photograph to accompany an article on war and famine in southern Sudan, she choose one by Kevin Carter, a South African photojournalist, of an emaciated toddler collapsing on the way to a United Nations feeding center as a covetous vulture lurked in the background.

Ms. Buirski commended the photo to Nancy Lee, The Times’ picture editor at the time. She then proposed it, strongly, for the front page, because, she recalled telling another editor, “This is going to win the paper’s first-ever Pulitzer Prize for photography.”

The photograph ended up appearing on an inside page in the issue of March 26, 1993, but the reaction from readers, concerned about the child’s fate, was so strong that The Times published an unusual editors’ note afterward explaining that the child had continued to the feeding center after Mr. Carter chased away the vulture.

The picture won the Pulitzer in the feature photography category. (Mr. Carter died by suicide a few months later at 33.)"

Full obituary here.

View Grey Villet's photographs of Richard and Mildred Loving here.

NEW BOOK DOCUMENTS THE LOVE STORY OF MILDRED AND RICHARD LOVING

The Lovings
An Intimate Portrait
Grey Villet, Barbara Villet, Stephen Crowley
Princeton Architectural Press
10 × 8 inches, Hardcover, 128 pages, 82 duotones
Now available from the Gallery $24.95

The Lovings: An Intimate Portrait documents the extraordinary love story of Mildred and Richard Loving. The Lovings presents Grey Villet's stunning photo-essay in its entirety for the first time and reveals with striking intensity and clarity the powerful bond of a couple that helped change history. Mildred, a woman of African American and Native American descent and Richard, a white man, were arrested in July 1958 for the crime of interracial marriage, prohibited under Virginia state law. Exiled to Washington, DC, they fought to bring their case to the US Supreme Court. Knowledge of their struggle spread across the nation, and in the spring of 1965, the Life magazine photojournalist Villet spent a few weeks documenting the Lovings and their family and friends as they went about their lives in the midst of their trial. Loving v. Virginia was the landmark US civil rights case that, in a unanimous decision, ultimately ended the prohibition of interracial marriage in 1967.

Grey Villet (1927--2000) was an award winning photographer and photojournalist who worked at Life magazine for more than thirty years.

Barbara Villet is an author and journalist who was a photo editor at Life and collaborated on many of Mr. Villet's projects.

One of photojournalism's most distinguished practitioners, Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Crowley of the New York Times credits the influence of a Grey Villet Life essay with his decision, at age nine, to become a photographer.

Monroe Gallery will exhibit rare vintage prints from GreyVillet's Loving's photo essay on our booth #53 4during the AIPAD Photography Show in New York March 30 - April 2. A special book signing of The Lovings with Barbara Villet will take place in our booth # 534 on Saturday, April 1, from 3 - 4 PM.

Selections from Photo LA 2017

Monroe Gallery of Photography is exhibiting in booths #205/302 this weekend at the Photo la fair being held at The Reef/LA Mart, through Sunday, January 15

Partial view of the "Loving" photographs by Grey Villet.

Partial view of the Tony Vaccaro exhibit. Tony was the subject of the recent

HBO documentary film "Underfire".

Carrie Fisher, "Star Wars", 1982 by Mario Cassilli

Debbie Reynolds. "JOY", for FLAIR Magazine c. 1950 by Tony Vaccaro

We are honored that our exhibition at the 2017 edition of photo la has attracted the attention of the following press:

The Creators Project: LA’s Longest Running Art Fair Nails Another Year of Stunning Photography

Crave:  Kick Off a New Year in Art with “photo l.a.”

LA Times: 1960s Life magazine photos of the 'Loving' couple, on view at Photo L.A.

Los Angeles Magazine: Preview the Stunning Images from the Massive Photo L.A. Exhibition

LA Taco: Preview: 26th Annual Photo L.A

Monroe Gallery of Photography at photo la 2017

Monroe Gallery of Photography is proud to exhibit at the 26th edition of photo la, held at The REEF, located in the historic LA Mart building in Downtown Los Angeles January 12-15, 2017. Monroe Gallery will occupy two large adjoining booths, #205/302, just to the right of the main fair entrance.

Among the many significant photographs being exhibited in our booth are Life Magazine photographer Grey Villet's intimate images of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple who married and then spent the next nine years fighting for the right to live as a family in their hometown, will be on exhibit. Their civil rights case, Loving v. Virginia, went all the way to the Supreme Court, which in 1967 reaffirmed the very foundation of the right to marry. On November 4, the feature film “Loving” opened, from acclaimed writer/director Jeff Nichols and starring Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga in the roles of Richard and Mildred Loving.

Monroe Gallery of Photography will also feature Tony Vaccaro's incredible images..  In November, HBO films premiered the documentary film “Under Fire: The Untold Story of Private First Class Tony Vaccaro”. The film tells the story of how Tony 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. It is now available for viewing on-demand from HBO.

Already these two specially curated exhibits have generated excitement from the LA Times and Los Angeles Magazine.

Rounding out the exhibition in our booth will be historic examples of civil rights photojournalism, 1960's  cultural icons, and several of Stephen Wilkes' Day To Nigh and China photographs.

Fair hours are  Friday, January 13, 11am - 7pm, Saturday, January 14, 11am - 7pm, Sunday, January 15, 11am - 6pm; with a special VIP preview on Thursday, January 12 from 7 - 10. Ticket information here.

We look forward to welcoming you to our booth during photo la 2017.

Monroe Gallery Announces Three Exhibitions For November

Monroe Gallery of Photography announces three timely exhibits for November, two of which coincide with major film releases.

Beginning November 1, LIFE magazine photographer Grey Villet's intimate images of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple who married and then spent the next nine years fighting for the right to live as a family in their hometown, will be on exhibit.

Their civil rights case, Loving v. Virginia, went all the way to the Supreme Court, which in 1967 reaffirmed the very foundation of the right to marry. On November 4, the feature film “Loving” opens, from acclaimed writer/director Jeff Nichols and starring Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga in the roles of Richard and Mildred Loving. Grey Villet’s photographs are on exhibit November 1 – December 31, 2016, and will then be exhibited at Photo LA, January 12 – 17, 2017.

Monroe Gallery of Photography will present a pop-up gallery exhibition in collaboration with veteran curator and art critic Peter Frank: “Tony Vaccaro: War, Peace, Beauty”, November 11 to 21, 2016, at 508 West 26th Street, 5th floor, in the West Chelsea Arts Building in New York City. The exhibit opens with a reception for Tony Vaccaro, Friday, November 11, 6 – 8 pm. Sidney and Michelle Monroe will be in attendance. Tony Vaccaro’s photographs will be on exhibit concurrently at Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe, NM, through December 31, 2016.

The Vaccaro exhibits coincide with the HBO premiere on Monday, November 14, of the documentary film “Under Fire: The Untold Story of Private First Class Tony Vaccaro”. The film tells the story of how Tony 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.

Finally, on November 25 Monroe Gallery presents a major exhibition of photographs from one of America’s most accomplished photographers, Art Shay. The exhibit of 50 photographs opens Friday, November 25 with a reception for the 94-year old photographer from 5 – 7 PM, and continues through January 22, 2017.

Gallery hours are 10 to 5 Daily, admission is free. For further information, please contact the Gallery.

JUNE 12: LOVING DAY

Grey Villet: Richard and Mildred Loving. 1965

Via The LA Times
June 10, 2016

"Forty-nine years ago on June 12, the Supreme Court struck down laws in 16 states that banned mixed-race marriages. The decision in Loving vs. Virginia overturned the conviction of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple from Caroline County, Va., who had been arrested, jailed and banned from their home state for violating its Racial Integrity Act.

It also ushered in a new era in the American family.

For 12 years, Ken Tanabe, a Japanese-Belgian freelance graphic designer living in New York, has been working to educate Americans about what he sees as one of the most significant civil rights cases through Loving Day, the unofficial holiday that cities across the country are slowly adapting to celebrate the lives of the fast-growing multiracial population.

Now Tanabe, whose organization has tracked and sponsored many of the dozens of dance and music festivals, film screenings, picnics and forums taking place across the country in June to commemorate Loving vs. Virginia, has launched a campaign to get the holiday recognized by the federal government." Read the full LA Times article here.

Grey Villet: Mildred and Richard Loving, King and Queen County, Virginia in April 1965

Grey Villet took over 2,400 frames of the Lovings for Life in 1965 but the magazine did not run the story until March 18, 1966, when the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the lower court ruling and the Lovings’ case headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The tone of the piece, as well as the selected images, was cool and neutral; the three published images that include both Mildred and Richard are extremely chaste and do not capture the emotional bond between them as so many of Villet’s other images do. Life, like many other media outlets, did not want to address the topic of interracial sex directly for fear of offending popular opinion.

White House petition to establish Loving Day as a holiday.

CBS News "Sunday Morning" Almanac: June 12th,1967, 49 years ago today ... a day of triumph for a basic human right

International Center of Photography: The Loving Story: Photographs by Grey Villet

HBO Documentary The Loving Story

Feature in production: LOVING

A Portrait of LIFE in 1960s America by Grey Villet

Museum at Bethel Woods

April 2 - December 31, 2016

Don't miss this compelling photography exhibit of LIFE magazine photographer Grey Villet, who traveled America and the world for LIFE magazine like an observant explorer, mapping its emotional contours in the faces and lives of its people. His in-depth, personal studies of the American scene of the 1950s and ’60s illuminated the complex reality of those years with a truth that, in his own words, were "as real as real could get." His images of presidents and revolutionaries, sports heroes, and everyday people struggling for their rights tell an emotional and compelling story of an era that shaped the present. Co Curated by his wife Barbara Villet.

Barbara Villet Bio:
That I ended up being a journalist was probably bred in the bone.  My father was a j reporter   for the old NY World but in time became the Sports Editor for Fox Movietone News in the day when the weekly newsreel was the main source of visual coverage. I didn't expect to follow him, but after   Middlebury and Harvard, I found myself working on the news desk of Radio Free Europe in the middle of the Cold War.  I left that job after the Hungarian Revolution and ended up at Life as a researcher, the only opening for women there was back then. Soon enough, I was on the news desk and it was there in 1958, that I first encountered Grey Villet's work on a school bus drowning in West Virginia. I never forgot it and in l961, when I had finally earned a promotion to editor and a byline--another rarity for women back then, I met him in person in l961 on an assignment I had conceived of as part of a trilogy on Fame, Wealth and Success.  Success ended up as a benchmark essay of l6 pages in Life and is included in a volume called     Great Essays from Life.   We ended up well matched both professionally and personally, and were married the next year. Until Life folded as weekly in l972, we had what Grey described as "a great ride" working together on assignments that carried us throughout the US and abroad . In 1965, when our daughter Ann was borne, I was offered an exclusive contract to produce 3 stories a year for Life with Grey which allowed me to stay at home with Ann until both of us went off on assignment. We took her with us to England and to California when she was very small and later to South Africa when we did the World Library Book. Other books were trade productions: Viking Press picked up our work on a missionary order of nuns which was published as Those Whom God Chooses and after Life folded, I took on an extension of one of our Life essays on a Head Nurse as a book for Doubleday. More freelancing followed and I did pieces for Quest and Atlantic Monthly before taking on another book contract. Called Blood River, it was a study of South Africa in the final days of apartheid and earned a Time Notable and Book of the Year citation as well as a nomination for the Pulitzer. Grey continued to shoot for Time, Sports Illustrated and Newsweek in those years.  It has been, to quote the Stones, a Long Strange Trip, but an amazing one that tools us to 37 countries around the world, mostly for work and sometimes for fun and I have very few regrets or complaints excepting the untimely loss of the great hearted guy who was my life partner and soul mate in 2000 at age 72.  I have since spent most of my energies on preserving and advancing his historic legacy.


Each year, The Museum at Bethel Woods presents new special exhibits that explore the popular culture, politics, art, and social history of the dynamic decade of The Sixties and its legacy.

Museum information, hours, and tickets here.

Grey Villet's photographs will be included in the Monroe Gallery of Photography exhibit, booth #104, during the AIPAD Photography Show April 13 - 17, Park Avenue Armory, New York.

Monroe Gallery at The AIPAD Photography Show 2012

Nina Berman: Afghan Woman with Diploma, Kabul, Afghanistan, 1998

We delighted to return to exhibit at the AIPAD Photography Show  in New York March 28 - April 1, 2012. The show is again at the Park Avenue Armory, and Monroe Gallery of Photography will be located in booth 419.


In our expanded booth, Monroe Gallery of Photography will be exhibiting specially selected work from the gallery's collection. Highlights include: new photographs from Stephen Wilkes' acclaimed "Day To Night" series; significant contemporary photographs by Nina Berman; important and historic photojournalism including photographs of the Civil Rights movement and Grey Villet's photographs of Richard and Mildred Loving taken during the landmark Supreme Court case overturning all race-based restrictions on marriage in the United States; and much more.

Show tickets are available for purchase at the Park Avenue Armory during Show hours.

Thursday, March 29 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Friday, March 30 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Saturday, March 31 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Sunday, April 1 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Stephen Wilkes: Coney Island, Day To Night

A Storyteller Is Seen With New Eyes

Grey Villet:"Slo-Pokes", Drag Racing In Moline, Illinois, 1957

Via The Wall Street Journal


"(Grey)  "Villet really fits into that ICP/Cornell Capa tradition—not only with photojournalism but this real interest in ordinary people and their lives."
 --Erin Barnett, International Center of Photography


"My sense of his power as a photographer was very great, and I was beginning to lose all hope that I was going to get this beautiful work out there."
--Barbara Villet, Grey's widow

"Villet shot for LIFE in both its weekly and reinvented monthly iterations between 1955 and 1985, producing some 40 full-length features of remarkable emotional and intellectual range—from a 1962 visit inside Synanon House, a controversial drug-treatment facility in California, to "The Lash of Success," an allegorical look at a Chicago furniture-chain owner whose abuse of power ultimately destroyed what he'd built. His mid-'70s essay about a hospital nurse, "More Than Compassion," like W. Eugene Smith's "Country Doctor," is a striking examination of life and death. Yet Smith's 1948 essay is legendary, and Villet's is hardly known."

"Grey was able to tell a story about something people necessarily hadn't gotten their minds around," said David Friend, who worked with Villet at LIFE as a reporter and picture editor. "It's not necessarily about [Henri] Cartier-Bresson's 'decisive moment'; it's about the collision or dovetailing of images that add up to a greater whole."

Among his own kind," Mr. Friend said of his former colleague, "he was revered."

"His work is every bit as important as those who were so well known," said Sidney Monroe, whose Santa Fe-based gallery represents Villet's estate."

Full article here.
(Subscription required)

Wall Street Journal slide show
(No subscription required to view)

Wall Street Journal Interactive: Watching and Listening: The Work of Photojournalist Grey Villet
View Grey Villet's photographs during the AIPAD Photography Show March 28 - April 1 at Monroe Gallery of Photography Booth #419.

Life of Marital Bliss (Segregation Laws Aside)

Grey Villet: Mildred and Richard Loving, King and Queen County,

Virginia in April 1965

We have been covering the forthcoming documentary film about Mildren and Richard Loving, an inter-racial couple who made civil-rights history. "The Loving Story" film will premiere on HBO on Valentine's day, February 14. An exhibition of Grey Villet's vintage photographs is currently on exhibition at the International Center of Photography.

Today's New York Times has a review of the exhibit:

"Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple from Virginia whose marriage prompted a benchmark 1967 Supreme Court ruling overturning state miscegenation laws, are portrayed in “The Loving Story: Photographs by Grey Villet” as heroes who fell into history by accident.

 Grey Villet,  a South African photographer who worked for Life magazine, entered the story in 1965 when he traveled to Virginia to photograph the family, by then living together under an unofficial amnesty with their three children. Mr. Villet shot 73 rolls of film, but Life published only 9 images. The photographer then sent 70 prints to the Lovings. The vintage prints in this show are from that collection, as well as from Mr. Villet’s estate.

The images represent the heyday of social documentary, but also the photo-essay format established by magazines like Life and Look. There is the whiff of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and other 1930s documentarians, but also of W. Eugene Smith, a revered midcentury photo essayist, and David Goldblatt, a South African chronicler of apartheid"  Full post and photographs here.

Concurrently, Monroe Gallery of Photography is opening the exhibition "Grey Villet: The Lovings" on February 3, concurrent with the exhibition "Vivian Maier: Discovered". The exhibition continues through March 18, and Grey Villet's photographs of the Lovings will be on exhibit during the AIPAD Photography Show March 29 - April 1 at Monroe Gallery, Booth #419. Monroe Gallery of Photography is honored to represent the Estate of Grey Villet.

Related: Director's Interview: The Loving Story

WEEK IN REVIEW: Selected Photography Stories

Supermarket Pickets, New Jersey, 1963 © Steve Schapiro,

Monroe Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe

La Lettre de la Photographie has a wrap-up of the 2012 edition of Photo LA, reported by Jeff Dunus with a slide show of highlights here.

Vivian Maier: September 28, 1959, 108th St. East, New York

©Maloof Collection, Ltd.

 

Art Critic Roberta Smith of The New York Times writes a review of 2 concurrent Vivian Maier exhibitions in New York. The exhibition "Vivian Maier: Discovered" opens at Monroe Gallery of Photography on February 3, and continues through April 22.

Grey Villet: Mildred and Richard Loving

The International Center of Photography opened the exhibition "The Lovings Story: Photographs by Grey Villet".  The Amsterman News has the most recent article about this remarkable collection of photographs, taken by Life magazine photographer Grey Villet:

"Brown v. Board of Education. Plessy v. Ferguson. The list of notable court cases that blazed the trail for civil rights in our nation is long, but there is one case that many have forgotten but is no less important: Loving v. Virginia."

More about the Lovings photographs here.


Raw File Blog covers Tim Mantoani's  new book Behind Photographs: Archiving Photographic Legends. "The Tank Man of Tienanmen Square. Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston in victory. The portrait of the Afghan Girl on the cover of National Geographic. Many of us can automatically recall these photos in our heads, but far fewer can name the photographers who took them. Even fewer know what those photographers look like." We are very proud that several of Monroe gallery's photographers are featured.

GREY VILLET: THE LOVINGS

Grey Villet: Richard and Mildred Loving in the spring of 1965

UPDATED: La Lettre de la Photographie:
ICP: Grey Villet and the Loving Story


A must-see post on Wednesday's New York Times Lens Blog:

The Heart of the Matter: Love



Related:

New York Times Sunday Magazine: The Case of Loving v. Bigotry

John Edwin Mason: Grey Villet, Interracial Love, and Drag Racing, 1965

International Center of Photography Exhibit: The Loving Story: Photographs by Grey Villet

The Loving Story Movie Website