This anniversary reminds us of war’s cost and the courage to believe in humanity, even in the darkest times.
Monroe Gallery of Photography specializes in 20th- and 21st-century photojournalism and humanist imagery—images that are embedded in our collective consciousness and which form a shared visual heritage for human society. They set social and political changes in motion, transforming the way we live and think—in a shared medium that is a singular intersectionality of art and journalism. — Sidney and Michelle Monroe
December 12, 2024
U.S. Marines of the 28th Regiment, 5th Division, raise a U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, Japan, Feb. 23, 1945. (AP Photo/Joe Rosenthal, File)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A photojournalist who captured one of the most enduring images of World War II — the U.S. Marines raising the flag on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima — will have a block in downtown San Francisco named for him Thursday.
Joe Rosenthal, who died in 2006 at age 94, was working for The Associated Press in 1945 when he took the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo.
After the war, he went to work as a staff photographer for the San Francisco Chronicle, and for 35 years until his retirement in 1981, he captured moments of city life both extraordinary and routine.
By Stephen Dando-Collins | 4 December 2024
Early on Christmas Day, 1942, 26-year-old George Silk rose from his cot at battalion HQ at Soputa in northeast Papua and began walking to the Buna battlefront 10km away.
Around his neck hung his two cameras – a Rolleiflex Standard for close-ups, and a 35mm Zeiss Ikon Contax fitted with a telephoto lens for distance shots.
Silk was a New Zealand camera shop assistant who’d turned up in the Canberra office of Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies in January 1940.
He talked Menzies into hiring him as Australia’s second government combat photographer, and after working in North Africa, Silk was reassigned by the Australian Department of Information (DOI) to the New Guinea campaign.
For close to three years Silk had striven to take the ‘great’ war picture, something to emulate or surpass Robert Capa’s famous 1937 shot from the Spanish Civil War, The Falling Soldier.
Now, with the Australians and Americans starting to gain the upper hand in the fight against the Imperial Japanese Army in Papua, Silk was anxious to get his best shot before the Battle of Buna-Gona ended.
So, on December 24 he dragged himself from his hospital bed outside Port Moresby, where he’d been laid low by malaria, and hitched a ride back to the front.
On the track to Old Strip, Silk, rounding a bend in the tall kunai grass, saw two men approaching side-by-side. One was a wounded Australian soldier, Private George ‘Dick’ Whittington.
Barefoot, walking with the aid of a long stick, his eyes were covered by a rough bandage. Guiding Whittington was volunteer Papuan carrier Raphael Oimbari, a farmer in his twenties.
It almost seemed as if Silk would be intruding if he photographed the pair. “I wanted to take the picture, but I didn’t at first,” he later recalled.
But his documentarian’s instincts kicked in. Using his Rolleiflex from the waist with the pair less than two metres away, Silk snapped a single shot without even looking down into the viewfinder.
Seemingly unaware of him, the wounded soldier and carrier passed Silk by. Hurrying after them, he obtained the soldier’s details before the pair continued on.
Later that day, Silk joined Whittington’s 2/10th Battalion. Clicking away in the thick of the fighting that afternoon, he collapsed face-down on the battlefield. Malaria had caught up with him.
Towards sunset, an Aussie soldier found the photographer lying with the dead all around him. Evacuated to Moresby, Silk ended up in a malaria ward.
You can’t keep a good photographer down. Silk was soon back at the front. At Giropa Point on December 31 and January 1, he took what he considered his two best pictures of the war, close-ups beside Bren-gunners and Vickers-gunners with bullets whistling all around. Again, Silk collapsed with malaria, and again he ended up in hospital.
Meanwhile, another George, American Life photographer George Strock, snapped three dead American soldiers on Buna Beach.
In hospital, George Silk learned the DOI had banned his two Giropa Point photos – one showed a dead Digger, while one of the Bren-gunners had dropped down dead beside him seconds after he took his picture.
At the same time, Silk’s photo of Whittington and the ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel’ was also banned for being ‘too graphic’.
Silk was incensed. So, he wined and dined a young female clerk working in the DOI’s Port Moresby office and brought her into a conspiracy.
She had prints of his three banned pictures made at the DOI’s Sydney photographic laboratory and sent to her.
She gave them to Silk, who passed them to a war correspondent friend, who had them approved by the American censor at GHQ in Brisbane. Silk then gave his prints to George Strock, who smuggled them to Life.
Strock knew the Pentagon banned publication of photos of American dead, but was appalled by apathy towards the war at home. He was determined to jolt his fellow Americans into getting behind their troops.
On March 8, 1943, Life published Silk’s The Blind Soldier, full page.
Readers hailed it the best picture of the war. A month later Silk was fired by the DOI. Parliamentary backbenchers called for him to be charged with treason. His friend Damien Parer resigned in protest at his treatment.
Meanwhile, Life management struggled for seven months to gain War Department approval to publish Strock’s Three Dead Americans.
Going all the way to the White House, they discovered that, like George Strock, President Roosevelt was determined to cement Americans behind the war effort by being honest with them. With his approval, Three Dead Americans appeared in Life on September 20, 1943, shocking America.
In 2014, Time magazine would describe it as ‘the photograph that won the war’. Two iconic images, and one amazing story. ❂
The Buna shots: The Amazing Story Behind Two Photographs that Changed the Course of World War Two, by Stephen Dando-Collins, is published by Australian Scholarly Publishing. It’s the never before told story of two arresting photographs, two courageous photographers, and the quest for truth in war. You can order a copy here: https://bit.ly/3ZQ5DpV
Monroe Gallery of Photography is honored to announce a major exhibition of more than 45 photographs celebrating the life and career of Tony Vaccaro. “Tony Vaccaro: The Pursuit of Beauty” The exhibit opens on Friday, July 5, with a public reception and Gallery conversation with Frank Vaccaro, son of the photographer, 5 – 7 pm.
Monroe Gallery will sponsor a free screening of the HBO Documentary Film “Underfire: The Untold Story of Pfc Tony Vaccaro” on Saturday, July 6, 4 pm at the Jean Cocteau Theater.
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.
Tony Vaccaro died on December 28, 2022, eight days after celebrating
his 100th birthday. Orphaned at age 6, he immersed himself in studying classic
European art and by age 10 had a box camera. He photographed WWII from a
soldier’s perspective, documenting his personal witness to the brutality of
war. After carrying a camera across
battlefields, he become one the most sought-after photographers of his day,
eventually working for virtually every major publication: Flair, Look, Life,
Venture, Harper’s Bazaar, Town and Country, Quick, Newsweek, and many more.
Vaccaro turned the trauma of his youth into a career seeking beauty. This
exhibit explores the extraordinary depth of his archive and features several
new discoveries being exhibited for the very first time.
As a U.S. Army private, Tony Vaccaro's boat sailed for Normandy on D-Day+12 in June 1944, before landing, June 18.
Just before leaving for France, while all the other soldiers were busy checking their gear, Tony secretly wrapped his Argus C3 camera in layers of plastic to keep it from the water and to hide it from his commanding officer. He photographed the Normandy coast through a buttonhole in his outer jacket.
Drafted into the war at the age of 21, he was denied access to the Signal Corps, but Tony was determined to photograph the war and had his portable 35mm Argus C-3 with him from the start. For the next 272 days, Tony fought on the front lines of the war, documenting his personal witness to the horrors of war.
The pictures – many of them raw, graphic, disturbing – follow his advance, and that of his unit, the 83rd Infantry Division, from the beaches to Berlin.
They represent one of the most complete collections of images of World War II, as seen through the eyes of someone who fought during the conflict.
Read "D-Day through a lens: ‘First the rifle, then photographs’" on CNN
In 1994, the 50th anniversary of the D-Day landings, Tony was awarded the French Legion of Honor, among many other awards and recognitions. The documentary film Underfire: The Untold Story of Pfc. Tony Vaccaro Underfire: The Untold Story of Pfc. Tony Vaccaro premiered at the Boston Film Festival in 2016 and was distributed by HBO. The film led to a career renaissance for Tony Vaccaro.
A new exhibition, "TONY VACCARO: The Pursuit of Beauty" opens at Monroe Gallery of Photography on July 5, 2024, and will be on view through September 15, 2024.
Via The Real Frame: War Photography on Screen - The Real Frame
May 21, 2024 by David Butow David Butow –
As if the political tension in the United States couldn’t get any higher, this spring a new movie depicting a full-scale, near-future civil war in the country is filling theaters and drawing good reviews. The film, “Civil War”, directed by Englishman Alex Garland, (“The Beach”, “Ex Machina”), imagines that the country is ruled by a quasi-dictator serving his third term as president. The opposing side is comprised of a well-organized and equipped army of rebels (called the “Western Alliance”), that is on the move to Washington, D.C. to remove him from power.
The main point of the movie is, I think, to force audiences to confront the possibility, however remote, that something like this could actually happen. The U.S., despite illusions of “exceptionalism,” is fundamentally no different from any other empire that can break down and/or break apart. This is big stuff, but the POV of this terrible scenario is told through the narrow experiences of a group of four journalists, principally two still photographers played by Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny.
It’s rare that photojournalists are the main protagonists in a film, they’re usually quirky side characters like Dennis Hopper’s idiosyncratic portrayal of a half-crazed Vietnam War photographer in “Apocalypse Now.” But putting them in the center of the plot requires detail of their working habits, and more importantly, into the emotional and ethical challenges they face as they make their way through one violent situation after another. The whole raison d’être of them being there is questioned. Are they after the thrill or some greater good? What is the role of journalistic observers in conflict? I can’t say those questions are deeply examined but they are certainly put up on the metaphorical blackboard (or video projector if you prefer).
If you haven’t seen the film but might go, be aware there is a lot of violence depicted, sometimes rather realistically and without the heavy music and other mood overlays we’re used to in Hollywood movies. I found this starkness jarring, but effective. Another thing I thought the film did rather well was show how quickly things can happen, often when you’re not expecting them, and also how chaos and semi-normalcy can exist in proximities much closer than you might expect.
Conversely, I thought there were some things about the journalists the filmmakers definitely got wrong, but how many movies have I seen where the main characters are lawyers, doctors, cops or soldiers? I imagine that people in those professions, who are used to being depicted on screen, don’t usually overanalyze every misleading detail. But the photojournalistic community, never shy about taking itself seriously, and with a rare spotlight on its profession, has had a lot to say about “Civil War.”
The best commentary I’ve seen is in the video here. It features a thoughtful interview with photojournalists Lynsey Addario, Peter van Agmatel, Ron Haviv and John Moore. These four have about as much experience covering conflicts as any photographers working today, and they are all highly intelligent and deeply reflective about those experiences. In addition, the photographer Mohamed El Masri, speaking with the assistance of a translator, describes the specific danger and challenges with covering the war in Gaza.
They’ll tell you what they thought of the movie, but more important, how they think about the role of the press, and what it is really like to witness, record and communicate terrible acts of violence.
Underfire The Untold Story of Tony Vaccaro from Passion River Films on Vimeo.
Frankfurter Allegeime Tony Vaccaro documented life on the battlefields in Europe and the glamour of celebrities in America. Now he celebrates his hundredth birthday.
The Eye of Photography: Monroe Gallery of Photography : Tony Vaccaro : The Centennial Exhibition
Quotidiano Molise He conquered the world with his shots, Tony Vaccaro turns 100
News ES Euro Monroe Gallery of Photography: Tony Vaccaro: Exposición del Centenario
BlueNews: Il fotografo Tony Vaccaro compie 100 anni
Swiss Info USA: fotografo Tony Vaccaro compie 100 anni
Art Limited Tony Vaccaro The Centennial Exhibit
Il Mattino Il 20 dicembre 1922 nasce Tony Vaccaro, il fotografo molisano che immortalò lo sbarco in Normandia
Ansa Molise Tony Vaccaro compie 100 anni, videochiamata da Bonefro
Monroe Gallery of Photography: Tony Vaccaro: The Centennial Exhibition
December 20, 2022 is Tony Vaccaro Day in the City of New York
Via Photography in Berlin
October 1, 2022
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 BraunschweigVia Pasatiempo, The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 26, 2020
Photographer Tony Vaccaro, the subject of a 2016 documentary by HBO Films, fought on the front lines during World War II as a combat infantryman in the 83rd Infantry Division. All the while he was documenting his first-hand experience with his camera.
After the war, Vaccaro distinguished himself as a photographer, capturing a spectrum of events and personalities, such as artist Georgia O’Keeffe, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and activist Coretta Scott King. His work appeared in numerous publications, including Harper’s Bazaar, Town and Country, and Newsweek.
Vaccaro, who’s about to turn 99, survived the Battle of Normandy and, more recently, a bout of COVID-19. He appears via live remote for his 99th Birthday Exhibition during a 5 p.m. reception on Friday, Nov. 26. The exhibit continues through Jan. 16. Masks and proof of vaccination required for the reception.
Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar Ave., 505-992-0800, monroegallery.com
In what has become an annual tradition, Monroe Gallery of Photography is honored to present a special exhibition celebrating the birthday of renowned photographer Tony Vaccaro – this year honoring his 99th birthday on December 20. The exhibit of over 40 photographs spans Tony’s 80-year career and features several never-before-exhibited photographs. The exhibit opens Friday, November 26, and continues through January 16, 2022. Nearing age 99, Tony Vaccaro is one of the few people alive who can claim to have survived the Battle of Normandy and COVID-19.
As the world has endured nearly two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, the work of Tony Vaccaro serves as an antidote to man’s inhumanity; by focusing on the splendor of life, Tony replaced the images of horror embedded in his eyes from war.
Born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania on December 20, 1922, Tony Vaccaro spent the first years of his life in the village of Bonefro, Italy after his family left America under threat from the Mafia. His mother died during childbirth a few years before tuberculosis claimed his father, and by age 5 he was an orphan in Italy, raised by an uncaring aunt and enduring beatings from an uncle. By World War II he was an American G.I., drafted into the war heading toward Omaha Beach, six days after the first landings at Normandy. Denied access to the Signal Corps, Tony was determined to photograph the war, and had his portable 35mm Argus C-3 with him from the start. For the next 272 days he photographed his personal witness to the brutality of war.
After the war, Tony remained in Germany to photograph the rebuilding of the country for Stars And Stripes magazine. Returning to the US in 1950, Tony started his career as a commercial photographer, eventually working for virtually every major publication: Look, Life, Harper’s Bazaar, Town and Country, Newsweek, and many more. Tony went on to become one the most sought after photographers of his day.
UNDERFIRE: The Untold Story of Tony Vaccaro (trailer). from Cargo Film & Releasing on Vimeo.
Underfire: The Untold Story of PFC Tony Vaccaro is available from Apple and Amazon
Tony Vaccaro: Life is wonderful
5.6. - 8.8.2021
Photographs by Tony Vaccaro (b. 1922, U.S.) dive into the moods and a few seconds of past worlds.
The Life is Wonderful exhibition presents iconic fashion and lifestyle images by an internationally renowned photographer from the 1950s and 1970s. In addition to the glamour of New York, the pictures show a nostalgic summer atmosphere from Finland; The art hall also features the atmospheric Marimekko photos of Porvoo and Helsinki taken by Vaccaro in the summer of 1964 for LIFE magazine. The visit became special for the artist: Vaccaro met his future wife, Anja Kyllikki Lehto, who modelled for Marimekko.
In Tadehall, Helsinki, Vaccaro's nearly 80-year prolific career is presented with 130 photographs. In addition to fashion images, the exhibition will feature several photographs of visual artists and public figures. The first images of Vaccaro's career, known for his war photographs, of the battles of The Second World War in Germany and France, as well as a selection of shots of post-war European moods during the reconstruction period, are also on display.
The Life is Wonderful exhibition presents Tony Vaccaro's production for the first time in Finland. The exhibition is carried out in collaboration with Tony Vaccaro Studio, Monroe Gallery and Marimekko.
Tickets and more information here.
View the Tony Vaccaro collection of fine art prints here.
By Kathaleen Roberts
January 3, 2021
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Tony Vaccaro reigns as one of the few people to have battled both COVID-19 and the beaches of Normandy.
The photographer will celebrate his 98th birthday with a virtual show at Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography through Jan. 17, at monroegallery.com.
Vaccaro contracted Covid early in the pandemic – in April. He spent two days in the hospital.
He couldn’t walk from room to room,” his daughter-in-law Maria said in a telephone interview from their home in Long Island City, New York. “He just stopped eating and had no energy.”
Vaccaro survived, despite a 103-degree fever.
“I am a runner,” he explained. “I’ve been running since I was a child.”
Courtesy Monroe Gallery
He’s also a fighter who carried a camera from the invasion of Normandy through the reconstruction of Europe, capturing some of the most iconic images of World War II. Drafted at 21, he brought his 35mm Argus C-3 camera with him, spending the next 272 days photographing his personal witness to the carnage. He fought on the front lines, developing his photographs in combat helmets at night and hanging the negatives from tree branches.
“Normandy to Berlin was just tough,” he said, “because you could get killed any minute. I was in the infantry and in direct contact with the Germans.”
After the war, he remained in Europe, covering the rebuilding of Germany for Stars and Stripes. It was in Italy that he heard the strains of a violin coming from a narrow Venetian street.
“I was in Plaza San Marco in Venice,” he said. “And I had an idea of going into the small streets. So I go in and there was a violinist playing, of course, for people to throw down money. When I heard this violinist, it intrigued me. I went into the tiny streets of Venice and don’t you know, I had met him before in Rome.”
He captured his famous portrait of an American GI kneeling to kiss a little girl by accident. He came upon residents of St. Briac, France, singing and dancing in the streets after the 1944 liberation.
“There were these people holding hands and singing a song in French,” Vaccaro said. “Here’s this GI who knows not one word of French. They put a handkerchief under the knees of the little girl. It’s the symbol of a carpet for ladies.”
It was the Handkerchief Dance.
When Vaccaro returned stateside, he worked as a commercial photographer for Look, Life, Harper’s Bazaar, Town and Country, Newsweek and more.
His portrait of the art patron Peggy Guggenheim features a hidden joke. On assignment to do a profile, he followed her to the Guggenheim Museum in Venice. A statue by the Italian sculptor Marino Marini guards the entrance.
“There’s a man on a horse and he’s naked and his penis was as long as half my arm,” Vaccaro said. “She had this habit of whenever she had new guests, she unscrewed it.”
Guggenheim expected a children’s tour group, so she unscrewed the phallus and hid it beneath her cloak. It’s concealed under the garment in Vaccaro’s picture of Guggenheim in the gondola.
“She didn’t want the children to see it,” he said.
“Georgia O’Keeffe, Abiquiú, New Mexico, 1960” by Tony Vaccaro
Courtesy Monroe Gallery
Vaccaro met Georgia O’Keeffe on assignment for Look magazine with art editor Charlotte Willard in Abiquiú in 1960.
The artist refused to speak to him for five days.
O’Keeffe had been expecting a different photographer, one of her favorites, such as Ansel Adams, Todd Webb or Richard Avedon. Trying his best to charm her, Vaccarro cooked the artist a steak and fixed her broken washing machine, to no avail.
“Georgia O’Keeffe at the very beginning didn’t want anything to do with me,” he said. “She didn’t even look at me. She had just left her husband.”
“Guggenheim Hat, New York, 1960” by Tony Vaccaro
Courtesy Monroe Gallery
Suddenly, the topic turned to bullfighting. Vaccaro mentioned he had photographed the great Spanish matador Manolete.
O’Keeffe pivoted to face him. She never looked at Willard again.
Vaccaro still works and goes for regular walks.
“I am shooting, but not as before,” he said. “Before it was survival. Somehow, I have an eye for what’s good before I can click it. I have seen so much that it is really an instinct.”
As for Covid, he said, “I have an idea that the body forgets what it doesn’t like.”
IF YOU GO
WHAT: “Tony Vaccaro at 98”
WHERE: Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar Ave., Santa Fe
WHEN: Through Jan. 17
CONTACT: monroegallery.com, 505-992-0800.
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The New Mexican's Weekly Magazine of Arts, Entertainment, and Culture
November 20, 2020
By Jason Strykowski
Private First Class Tony Vaccaro, of the 83rd Infantry Division of the U.S. Army, taught himself to take photographs while under enemy fire. Deployed for 272 days in the Western Front during World War II, Vaccaro snapped 8,000 pictures. Many were of his fellow American soldiers. Others captured street scenes of war-torn France and Germany. “Bullets came right toward me, but somehow the one that kills never came about,” Vaccaro says. “I was scratched by bullets a few times, but I never had a bullet that injured me seriously.” Vaccaro survived the war to become a prolific and successful photographer.
“He’s among the most versatile photographers of his generation because he photographed war under live fire — European-style street photography — but, then fashion, storytelling, and documentary,” says the co-owner of Monroe Gallery, Sid Monroe. “He was game for any assignment.” Over time, Vaccaro would receive many.
To celebrate Vaccaro’s upcoming birthday, a new retrospective exhibition on his work opens at the Monroe Gallery on Friday, Nov. 20, called Tony Vaccaro at 98. To mark the occasion, the gallery holds a Zoom call with Vaccaro at 5:30 p.m. that day.
In April, Vaccaro fell ill with CoViD-19. He dismissed the illness as a mere “cough,” and doesn’t seem to be slowing down. As we spoke, he pointed out photographs in his Long Island City home and studio. All told, his archive holds hundreds of thousands of negatives, and the number keeps growing. He still goes out most days and captures the city using the same Leica he purchased in Germany 70 years ago.
Vaccaro was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, in 1922 and later moved to Italy following the death of his parents. He returned to the United States and was later drafted into the Army. Vaccaro already had his first camera and hoped to employ his skills for the Signal Corps, but he was told that he was too young. He reasoned that if he could squeeze a rifle trigger, he could squeeze a shutter button, but the Signal Corps was not convinced. Vaccaro was assigned to the infantry and brought his lightweight Argus C3 with him. (The little camera was often referred to as “the brick” for its rectangular shape.)
At the time, other war photographers moved slowly and carried bulky equipment. Often, they were forced to stage their pictures, reenacting important moments. Vaccaro, though, was a soldier first and photographer second. The fight was his priority, and he only took photos when he wasn’t forced to hold his rifle. When Vaccaro could shoot, he captured the brutal realties of war because he lived through them. “I shot from anywhere,” Vaccaro says. “From a foxhole. Standing up. Lying down. From the top of the trees. I would climb trees and take pictures there.”
There’s a powerful rawness to Vaccaro’s war photos. The black-andwhite images are steeped in contrast, not just between light and dark, but also between serenity and atrocity. “You have to be cold-blooded. You have to be a son of a bitch,” Vaccaro says of taking pictures during a war, in the documentary Underfire: The Untold Story of PFC Tony Vaccaro (2016). Although the scenes of warfare were tragic, Vaccaro put aside his feelings and acted as the consummate photographer.
His favorite photo, though, is one that depicts hope and love. The Kiss of Liberation features an American sergeant kneeling and kissing a small girl on the cheek in St. Briac, France, in 1944. The photo brims with compassion and perhaps pointed toward Vaccaro’s future in the medium.
“After the war, he decided to stick with photography because he knew he had an eye for it,” says Tony Vaccaro archives manager and Vaccaro’s daughter-in-law, Maria Vaccaro. “He signed up to work for a magazine run by the Army called Stars and Stripes, and he became one of the staffers.” Vaccaro, in his early 20s, purchased a used Army Jeep and traveled across Europe to document the recovering continent.
Vaccaro had the experience, skill, and, apparently the boldness to walk into the New York offices of Look and Life magazines to ask for a job. One of his photos, a dead solider buried in the snow, impressed an editor at the magazines, who asked Vaccaro if he could shoot celebrities with the same kind of vision. Vaccaro could, and would, for the next few decades.
Working freelance for Look, Vaccaro took portraits of Sophia Loren, President John F. Kennedy, Pablo Picasso, Enzo Ferrari, and Georgia O’Keeffe, among many others. As with his war photographs, Vaccaro’s portraits are present and of the moment. “He was absolutely charming. He was this suave, debonair Italian. He could talk his way into anything,” Monroe says. “There’s nothing between him and his subjects.” For Vaccaro, the people he photographed kept his mind off the atrocities of the war.
For almost four decades, Vaccaro worked as a freelance photographer all across the world. He traveled by camel up the Nile River and took a helicopter to the South Pole. Much of his war photography, though, remained unheralded until a 1998 exhibition laid the groundwork for a Taschen book called Entering Germany 1944-1949.
Six years ago, Vaccaro turned his negatives over his son Frank and daughter-in-law. All told, he documented the 20th century with more than a million negatives. “He kept everything in rolled-up paper in Kodak boxes,” Maria Vaccaro says. The family moved his studio to his apartment in Long Island City where they are working on the archives.
“When you’re a photographer, a serious photographer, you take chances, and you try to do the best you can,” Vaccaro says. “There was not another photographer better than me during the war.”
“I shot from anywhere. From a foxhole. Standing up. Lying down. From the top of the trees. I would climb trees and take pictures there.”
UNDERFIRE: The Untold Story of Tony Vaccaro (trailer). from Cargo Film & Releasing on Vimeo.
Tony Vaccaro, nearing age 98, is is one of the few people alive who can claim to have survived the Battle of Normandy and COVID-19. A new exhibition, "Tony Vaccaro at 98", illustrates his will to live and advance the power of beauty in this life. The exhibit opens on-line and in the Gallery Friday, November 20.
Iraq War: 'I am here today because another man died'
At the start of the Iraq War in 2003, over 600 journalists and photographers are given permission by the US government to follow the conflict as embedded reporters.
Photographer Ashley Gilbertson is working for The New York Times when he enters the city of Fallujah with a US marine battalion.
Fallujah, 40 miles outside Baghdad, would be the deadliest battle the marines would fight since the Vietnam War.
Just over a week after entering the city, a small group of them is ordered to escort Ashley on a recce of a local minaret - what happens next will change their lives forever.