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

 

EXCERPTS FROM AN EVENING OF PHOTOJOURNALISM

We were honored to welcome two  preeminent names in American journalism, former Time, Life, and People magazine editors Richard Stolley and Hal Wingo for an evening of conversation in the gallery in conjuction with the exhibition "History's Big Picture". The gallery was filled to standing room only as they talked about the power of magazine photography and photojournalism's past, present, and future.

A few excerpts from the evening:

Dick Stolley recounted the events surrounding President John F. Kennedy's assassination, and how he arrived in Dallas on the evening of the assassination and met early the next morning with Abraham Zapruder and secured the original and first-generation print of the "Zapruder film" for LIFE magazine. Stolley continued that he went to the County jail for the transfer of Lee Harvey Oswald, only to learn from a TV camerman that Jack Ruby had shot Oswald as he was leaving the City jail. Stolley then singled out Bob Jackson's Pulitzer-Prize winning photograph in the exhibition and continued:

"Two pictures were taken - a guy named Jack Beers shot a split-second earlier than Bob Jackson and the difference between the two photographs is profound. This captures everything and that split second before just missed. That split second is what makes the difference in so many of the photographs on these walls."

Both Stolley and Wingo covered stories in South during the most violent years of the Civil Rights struggle. Wingo told how he found assignments in the South scared him far more than any in Vietnam. They talked about the power oF the image, and the influence civil rights photographs had on American public opinion at the time.

Dick Stolley: "When LIFE showed up there were already a lot of writers covering the civil rights stories. It was one thing to write about segregationist crowds trying to prevent nine teenagers from going into Central High School, but when you showed these photographs of angry, contorted faces it made all the difference in two ways: one, in us understanding of what was going on in Little Rock and throughout the South, and two, the attitude the people in the photographs had.

It was one thing to be written about, it was a very different thing to wind up in the pages of LIFE magazine with your face contorted in rage...and they caught on to that instantly.

America saw these photograph and thought "Good God, what is happening?"

Hal Wingo continued: "I wonder if anyone here tonight might recognize this picture? Does it ring a bell in any of you?"

He held up this photograph, a double page spread from an old LIFE magazine:

These are the 18 men arrested, including County Deputy Cecil Price and his boss, Sheriff Lawrence Rainey, for the murders of three civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. These 18 men were arraigned not on on State charges, because Mississippi did not charge them, but on Federal charges of violating the rights of the three civil rights workers. This is the picture taken just after their arraignment...do they look worried?

They thought their ace in the hole was they would be judged locally, by a jury of their peers, and that's the safest thing that could happen"

On the state of photojournalism:

Photojournalism today maybe has a broader definition than just the creative work of talented photojournalists who can arrange or capture a moment that will be a lasting impression from these situations. It seems to me today photojournalism is any photograph that is in the sense journalism, that tells the story."  Dick Stolley

We would like to graciously thank Dick and Hal for a wonderful evening of discussion.

The photographic collection of veteran Picture Editor John G. Morris

 Toni Frissell
Jackie and the Kennedys, Wedding day in Newport
John G Morris: "Toni Frissell, whose work appeared mostly in Vogue, was the family photographer at the wedding of Jack Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier – "Jackie." She gave me prints for the Magnum story, which I sold to the Ladies’ Home Journal for $100,000. This is perhaps the most rare, as it shows the three Kennedy daughters, Patricia, Eunice and Jean, with the three then surviving sons, Bobby, Ted and Jack. The eldest son, Joseph P Jr, had died as a pilot in World War II"


The Photo Diary of John G. Morris auction takes place on Saturday 30 April 2011 at 3:15pm.



The 230 photographic prints for the sale will be exhibited for three days in Paris at Drouot Montaigne, 15 avenue Montaigne on Thursday and Friday 28-29 April from 11:00 to 18:00 and Saturday 30 April from 10:00 to 13:00. The exhibition is open to the public and a fully illustrated paper catalogue will be available for 30 euros.

In our visual age, photo editors have silently written history behind the scenes. John G. Morris has participated in the greatest photographic chapters of the 20th century. Perhaps best known as Robert Capa’s picture editor for Life magazine on D-Day, Morris’s impact on the visual lexicon spans nearly seventy-five years. While at the Ladies’ Home Journal, he conceived of the series, People are People the World Over, changing the way America viewed the world and inspiring Edward Steichen’s influential Family of Man 1955 exhibition. As the first Executive Editor of Magnum Photos, Morris played a key role in establishing many standards of practice in photojournalism, from story boarding to distribution. At The Washington Post, he balanced images inside the White House with coverage of the conflict in Vietnam. As picture editor for The New York Times he chose the first images of the moon landing published in color.

Morris moved to Paris in 1983 where he worked for nearly a decade as correspondent and editor for National Geographic. In May 2010, John G. Morris was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by The ICP, International Center of Photography.

Highlights of the sale include vintage works by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, David Seymour, Elliott
Erwitt, Robert Frank, Toni Frissell, Frank Horvat, Dorothea Lange and award-winning press photographs.

The photographs in this memorable auction are both personal gifts from the artists to John and creative working prints completing the visual diary of John G. Morris. The verso of each print in this collection is inscribed by hand to share the stories behind the images and celebrate John’s enduring friendships with the photographers themselves.

Auction details here.

Download the catalogue here.

Speaking from his home in Paris, where he has lived since the early 1980s, Morris said: "My hope is that this auction will change the outlook on photojournalism in the money markets. I know that's a strange thing to say, but photography auctions in the past have consisted primarily of aesthetically beautiful prints which did not necessarily have much to do with telling the truth about life through the daily newspapers and in magazines. As far as I know, this is the first photojournalism collection to come on to the art market," said Morris. "So in setting minimum prices for the pictures, and estimates, it's been a sort of ballpark thing. We don't know what will sell and what won't." Read more from the Guardian newspaper.


The Guardian newspaper also has an excellent slide show of selected images with commentary from Morris.

"Veteran Life magazine picture editor John G Morris talks us through some of the photographs from his extraordinary personal collection that are to be auctioned in April 2011".

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Military appraisal at Moscow trolley stop, 1954 (Life cover)
John G Morris: "This is the photo I recommended to managing editor Ed Thompson of Life when he asked me, 'What do you see for a cover?' In December I came back from Paris with hundreds of prints of the USSR, I remember the customs officer asking me how much they were worth (in 1954) I replied: 'That’s what I am here to find out'."