Monroe Gallery of Photography 2022 in Review

 

David Butow: Brink

Gallery talk

Exhibition link

Ed Kashi: Abandoned Moments

Gallery talk

Exhibition link

The LIFE Photographers

Exhibition video

Exhibition link

Imagine A World Without Photojournalism

Gallery discussion with photojournalists Nina Berman and David Butow

Exhibition link

The Legacy of Bill Eppridge

Exhibition video

Exhibition link

The Tony Vaccaro Centennial Exhibition

Exhibition video

Exhibition link

We look forward to seeing you in 2023!

Gabriela Campos Photo Feature in The Guardian

 Via The Guardian

December 27, 2022

Gallery photographer Gabriela Campos photographed the feature "Native American chefs are redefining the food truck scene while building a loyal customer base" for the UK Guardian Full article here.

Ryan Rainbird Taylor holds a plate full of indigenous soul food dishes that Yapopup is known for. We meet him in the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, not far from his grandmother’s home. 

Photograph: Gabriela Campos

Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting 2022 A Year in Photos Includes Ed Kashi Photograph

 

Via Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

December 26, 2022

One of Gallery Photographer Ed Lashi's photographs from an assignment for TIME in Qatar, documenting the impact of heat stress on workers building the World Cup stadiums, has been chosen by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting as one of the best photographs of the year.

A worker on a World Cup construction site in Lusail City, Qatar, tries to stay hydrated during extreme heat conditions. Thousands of migrant workers died in the decade leading up to the games/ Ed Kashi | VII/TIME

"I see the issue of heat stress and work to be one of the growing challenges we face in light of climate change. Focusing on Nepalese workers who had traveled to Qatar to work on the World Cup facilities was a timely and important way to amplify this issue to a global audience.

The value of visual reporting is only growing in impact, and to have this work appear during the World Cup couldn’t have been better timing to emphasize the need to address this pressing issue." - Ed Kashi

In 2022, the Pulitzer Center supported photojournalism that captured a wide array of the year’s most definitive moments. The work featured here exemplifies visual storytelling with depth and nuance. These images show the heartbreak of conflict, demands for justice, and the global fight for liberty and equality. They beckon viewers to witness the effects of deforestation and meet the communities living on the front lines of climate change.

Together, this collection of Pulitzer Center-supported work visualizes our mission to raise awareness of underreported global issues, sustain attention on urgent stories, and hold those in power to account. Our grants and fellowships for freelance and staff photojournalists aim to cultivate equal representation of voices in our work and the journalism we support.

Photojournalism is a powerful mechanism to provoke positive change. Universally understood, visual storytelling communicates across languages, distances, and lived experiences. It takes great care, intention, and determination to produce work with such impact, and we are thankful to our grantees and reporting partners for furthering the Pulitzer Center's mission.

Tony Vaccaro centennial exhibition on view at Monroe Gallery of Photography

 Via Art Daily

December 23, 2022

A glowing sunset portrait of the twin towers of the World Trade Center from 1979

SANTA FE, NM.- A new exhibitions celebrates the 100th birthday of acclaimed photographer Tony Vaccaro in Santa Fe. The show has been on view at Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe since November 25, 2022, and will end on January 29, 2023.

Vaccaro is known for his photographs of WWII, which were the subject of a 2016 HBO documentary, and his editorial work for Life, Look, Newsweek, Vanity Fair and countless other publications. The exhibitions coincide with Tony Vaccaro 100! on view at the Museum für Photographie in Braunschweig, Germany. In both locations, Tony Vaccaro: The Centennial Exhibition, juxtaposes the living legend’s powerful war images with the lyrical mid-century fashion, film, and pop culture photographs that came later.

On view are more than four dozen photographs dating from 1944-1979. From the battlefields of Europe to the rooftops of Manhattan, Vaccaro trained his inimitable lens with a sensitivity derived from early hardship as an orphan in Italy. After the war, he replaced the searing images of horror embedded in his memory, by focusing on the splendor of life and capturing the beauty of fashion and those who gave of themselves: artists, writers, movie stars, and cultural figures. From a photograph of a running soldier in 1944’s Battle of the Bulge to a shot of the actress Gwen Verdon swinging in a hammock against a New York skyline, the exhibition illustrates Vaccaro’s will to live against all odds and to advance the power of beauty. Several never-before-exhibited photographs are on view: a 1951 image of a bevy of beautiful women surrounding one in a pink dress on a balcony, a 1968 shot of Vaccaro holding up a test strip during a photo shoot, and a glowing sunset portrait of the twin towers of the World Trade Center from 1979.

As Vaccaro passed his 100th birthday on December 20, 2022, he has survived two bouts of Covid, and is one of the few people alive who can claim to have survived the Battle of Normandy and Covid. He attributes his longevity to “blind luck, red wine and determination.”

“To me, the greatest thing that you can do is challenge the world,” said Vaccaro. “And most of these challenges I win. That’s what keeps me going.”

Born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, on December 20, 1922, Michelantonio Celestino Onofrio 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 eight years old, and he was raised by an uncaring aunt and a brutal uncle. His love of photography began in Bonefro where at age ten, he began taking pictures with a box camera. When World War II broke out, the American ambassador in Rome ordered Vaccaro to return to the States. He settled in with his sisters in New Rochelle, N.Y., where he joined his high school camera club. His teacher and mentor Bertram Lewis guided him through a year of concentrated apprenticeship.

A year later, at the age of 21, Vaccaro was drafted into the war. He was determined to photograph the war, and had his portable 35mm Argus C-3 with him from the start. By the spring of 1944 he was photographing war games in Wales. By June, now a combat infantryman in the 83rd Infantry Division, he was on a boat heading toward Omaha Beach, six days after the first landings at Normandy. For the next 272 days, Vaccaro fought and photographed on the front lines of the war. He entered Germany in December 1944, as a private in the Intelligence Platoon, and was tasked with going behind enemy lines at night. In the years after the war, he remained in Germany to photograph the rebuilding of the country for Stars and Stripes magazine.

Returning to the States in 1950, Vacarro started his career as a commercial photographer, eventually working for virtually every major publication: Flair, Life, Look, Harper’s Bazaar, Quick, Newsweek, Town and Country, Venture, and many more. Tony went on to become one the most sought after photographers of his day, photographing everyone from Enzo Ferrari and Sophia Loren to Pablo Picasso, Peggy Guggenheim and Frank Lloyd Wright. From 1970 to 1980 he taught photography at Cooper Union.

“Il Maestro,” as the Italian press calls him, has won numerous honors and awards. These include the Art Director’s Gold Medal (New York City, 1963), The World Press Photo Gold Medal (The Hague, 1969), The Legion of Honor (Paris, 1994), The Medal of Honor (Luxembourg, 2002), Das Verdienstkreuz (Berlin, 2004), and the Minerva d’Oro (Pescara, 2014).

Since retiring in 1982, Vaccaro’s work has been exhibited world-wide over 250 times and has been published or been the subject of ten books and two major films. In 2014, the Museo Foto Tony Vaccaro was inaugurated in Bonefro, Italy.

Vaccaro’s works are in numerous private and public collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

In 2016, HBO Films premiered Under Fire: The Untold Story of Private First Class Tony Vaccaro. The film tells the story of how he 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. The film has led to a career renaissance for Vaccaro.

In 2018, Vaccaro’s photographs were featured in major one-person exhibitions in Venezia, Italy; Potsdam, Germany; London, England; and Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2019, he was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame in St. Louis, Mo. In 2021 the Kunsthalle Helsinki presented the exhibition Tony Vaccaro: Life Is Wonderful, a selection of 130 images from his career of nearly 80 year

TIME's Top 10 Photos of 2022 includes David Butow's Image of a makeshift memorial in downtown Uvalde

 Via TIME

December 22, 2022

On May 24, 19 students and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. The next day, as the nation attempted to understand yet another tragedy, photographer David Butow traveled from his home in Los Angeles to document the aftermath. “I spent most of my childhood in Texas,” says Butow. “I have affection for the place, but in recent years have watched with dismay how the state government has trumpeted an aggressive pro-gun attitude, and I felt that made this event particularly tragic and ironic.”

Residents and media gathered at a local park in close proximity to the school. Butow found himself there along with a group of children and parents visiting the makeshift memorials. “I looked around my camera’s viewfinder at all those faces going through various expressions of pain and grief,” he says. “It was very, very raw and painful to watch, but it was real and it was happening right in front of me so I stayed in place for a few minutes taking dozens of pictures.”

Butow says he has mixed feelings about recording these children’s emotions in such a direct way, but he believes it is critical for the public to see the impact of the shooting. “It makes me sad and angry that Uvalde’s children suffered because of the selfishness and failures of many adults in this country who should be looking after them.”

Full article with all 10 photographs

Pollock Krasner House: Photographer Tony Vaccaro’s 100th Birthday/ Exhibit & Tribute

 Via Pollock Krasner House

Dec. 20, 2022

LEGENDARY PHOTOGRAPHER TONY VACCARO’S 100th BIRTHDAY

click here to view the recording of our tribute with his son Frank Vaccaro

Jackson Pollock, East Hampton, 1953

Imagine photographing on the front lines while being a soldier in combat during World War II. And later photographing the most celebrated artists, Pollock, Krasner, Picasso, deKooning, and others.

Joyce Raimondo, Education Coordinator, leads a discussion with Vaccaro’s son, Frank Vaccaro, about his father’s acclaimed war photographs and Vaccaro’s iconic photographs of Pollock and Lee. Helen Harrison, Director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center leads a virtual tour of the barn studio where Vaccaro’s photos of Jackson and Lee are displayed.

Tony Vaccaro: A Centennial Tribute

‘Andy Warhol and Friends’: Steve Schapiro’s Intimate Photos of Warhol, the Velvet Underground and Edie Sedgwick

Via Rolling Stone

December 21, 2022

Warhol at a New York party with Edie Sedgwick, 1965. “In the years that I photographed Andy, I never saw him out of his ‘character’ — except in this one photo,” Schapiro writes in the book. “He looks so charmed by his friend Edie. I find this picture to be very endearing. I call this image Andy Loves Edie.”

By 1965, Andy Warhol had already revolutionized the art world with his depictions of soup cans, Marilyn Monroe, and Brillo boxes. His interests grew to include rock & roll — he started managing the Velvet Underground and eventually produced their debut, The Velvet Underground & Nico — and he began making even more films, which starred members of his retinue including Edie Sedgwick, Gerard Malanga, and Mary Woronov, among others. Seeing how he fascinated the world, Life magazine hired photojournalist Steve Schapiro to document Warhol's cultural ascension. Ultimately, the magazine never published the story.

Schapiro, who died earlier this year after a long and distinguished career which also included many well-known images from the Civil Rights Movement, excavated the negatives from his Life shoot for a book that's just been released. Andy Warhol and Friends: 1965 – 1966 includes many never-before-seen documents of a pivotal time in Warhol's life as he helped shape popular culture for decades to come. Included are scenes from the artist's Silver Clouds exhibition in L.A. and many shots of the Velvet Underground at work, as well as an essay and captions by Warhol biographer Blake Gopnik. What follows are some of Schapiro's eye-opening images from Andy Warhol and Friends.

Full slide show here

The World Salutes Tony Vaccaro On His 100th Birthday

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

December 20, 2022 is Tony Vaccaro Day in NYC

 

Photographer Tony Vaccaro, 99, captures ‘beauty of life’ — from WWII to haute couture

 Via The NY Post

December 10, 2022

What began as a childhood pastime in Italy turned into a career that took Tony Vaccaro around the world Photo credit  Manolo Salas

Tony Vaccaro took his first picture when he was 10 years old and living in Italy. He soon started toting a camera everywhere — to school, on camping trips, a visit to the Vatican, and eventually to the frontlines of World War II, where, as an American soldier, he documented the Battle of the Bulge, the Liberation of France and the tragic deaths of his comrades.

After that, Vaccaro vowed he would devote himself not to the brutality of war, but to “beauty.”

“I said to myself, ‘You must photograph those people who give mankind something,’” the 99-year-old photographer, who lives in Long Island City, told The Post. “And I went after them — all of them.”

He sure did: Vaccaro has snapped everyone from Jackson Pollock to John F. Kennedy, Jr., Sophia Loren, Lee Krasner, Frank Lloyd Wright — who gave Vaccaro one of his canes, which the shutterbug still uses today — and countless other luminaries, who often became his friends.

Vaccaro turns 100 on Dec. 20, and a new exhibit celebrates his extraordinary life and career. “Tony Vaccaro: The Centennial Exhibition” runs Dec. 13 to 18 at the Monroe Gallery of Photography pop-up at 21 Spring St., Nolita. It features some two dozen images from a deep body of work, from harrowing war photos to whimsical fashion shoots to portraits of celebrities and artists, including Eartha Kitt and Georgia O’Keeffe.

“In the process of doing that, I hope I gave mankind something back,” Vaccaro said.

Now nearly 100, Vaccaro has snapped countless celebrities, creatives and other luminaries.

Phot credit  Manolo Salas

Vaccaro likes to joke that he has survived the Battle of Normandy and two bouts of COVID, but his entire life story is one of remarkable resilience. Born in Greensburg, Penn., on December 20, 1922, he spent his early childhood in Italy after his family had to flee the States under threat of the Mafia. By the age of 5, both of his parents were dead.

“I was raised by my uncle, who physically abused me,” Vaccaro said. “But he did give me my father’s box camera, and my love for photography was born.”

As fascism swept through Italy, a teenaged Vaccaro went back to the States, reuniting with his two sisters in Westchester County. As an immigrant who didn’t speak English, carrying his camera, which he used to document his classmates and their adventures, made him feel accepted.

As a young immigrant who didn’t speak English, Vaccaro found that his camera helped him feel accepted.  Tony Vaccaro with test strip, NY, 1960

Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography

At 21, he was drafted into the US Army. He carried his 35 mm Argus C3, along with his gun, to the frontlines. He used army helmets to develop his film at night and hung the prints on tree branches to dry. He was shot and injured twice and got a purple heart. Afterward, he used his experience shooting on the front lines to bring life and spontaneity to the staid world of fashion shoots, much like Richard Avedon and Gordon Parks.

Vaccaro retired in the 1980s, but he still takes pictures of his 8-year-old twin grandchildren, Luke and Liam (who live in the apartment across the hall from him in Queens), and even photographed the New York City Marathon in November. He also shares an incredible array of vintage snaps on Instagram — @tonyvaccarophotographer — with the help of his daughter-in-law, Maria.

Two weeks ago, he went to the hospital with a burst stomach ulcer, and was still recovering from surgery when he spoke with The Post last week. (His son, Frank, helped Vaccaro form his responses, jogging his memory.)

Still, he has not lost his boundless zest for life.

Vaccaro with a photo of Willem de Kooning — the abstract expressionist artist was one of many 20th century boldface names to befriend the photographer over the years.Manolo Salas

“I feel super,” he said over the phone from his hospital bed, adding that he credits “chocolate, red wine and determination” for his longevity.

“I have been lucky,” he said. “I want the world to know the beauty of life.”

Tony Vaccaro’s “White Death”   Tony Vaccaro, courtesy of Monroe Gallery

Vaccaro snapped this stark photo of a fallen soldier lying face down in the snow before he realized the body belonged to his friend, Pvt. Henry Irving Tannenbaum. More than 50 years later, Tannenbaum’s son Sam contacted Vaccaro to ask about his father, and the two ended up going to the field where he had been killed. “I was confused to find that the field had transformed into a forest — pine trees everywhere,” Vaccaro recalled. “The land owner told us that it wasn’t actually a forest, but that the field is used for growing Christmas trees to be sold in Spain. Can you imagine — tannenbaum means Christmas tree in German!”

Tony Vaccaro’s “Kiss of Liberation,” 1945.Tony Vaccaro, courtesy of Monroe Gallery

Vaccaro often credits this photo of American soldier Gene Costanzo kissing a small French girl in St. Briac, Brittany at the end of the war as his favorite picture. “The day we liberated this small town in France I will never forget,” he wrote in an Instagram post. It was an early summer morning and when news of the liberation broke, women and children flooded the streets. “I was lucky that the French kiss three times [instead of one]. Otherwise I may have missed this warm moment between the soldier and this little girl.”

Tony Vaccaro’s “Defeated Soldier,” 1947.Tony Vaccaro, courtesy of Monroe Gallery

After the war, Stars and Stripes magazine asked Vaccaro to stay in Europe to document the rebuilding of Germany. As he was leaving the US embassy in Frankfurt to pick up his passport, he stumbled upon a German soldier crying outside what was once his home. “He had lost his wife and children,” Vaccaro said. “He had apparently been released from a prisoner camp in Texas or Oklahoma.” The experience of getting to know the enemy made him realize “we all bleed the same blood.” “When we got to know each other we were not much different,” he said.

Georgia O’Keeffe at home in 1960.Tony Vaccaro Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography

Vaccaro was assigned to photograph then 72-year-old artist O’Keeffe at her home in New Mexico for Look magazine in 1960. But when he arrived, she refused to look at him. “She was expecting a different photographer,” Vaccaro said. After five days of ignoring him, she mentioned something about Manolette, considered the greatest bullfighter of all time. “I told her that I had photographed Manolette and that I could send her a photograph,” Vaccaro recalled. “So she turned towards me, and for the next two days, never looked, nor talked, to the writer [who had accompanied Vaccaro for the story], Charlotte Willard.” Willard left “in a huff,” and Vaccaro stayed nearly two weeks, snagging scores of intimate portraits.

Gwen Verdon on a New York City rooftop in 1953.Tony Vaccaro, courtesy of Monroe Gallery

The Tony Award-winning actress, dancer and choreographer Gwen Verdon was one of Vaccaro’s favorite fashion subjects. “She was a sensation,” he recalled. “She did anything and tried everything.” The photographer was shooting Verdon for a quickie fashion shoot and had to improvise something on the outside balcony of the 12th floor of LOOK magazine, so he tied a hammock and instructed Verdon to lounge on it. “I also had a basket of apples at the studio that day, and we ended up rolling them all on the floor of the photoshoot.”

Givenchy at home with partner Phillip in 1961.Tony Vaccaro  Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography

Vaccaro struck up a friendship with the French couturier Hubert de Givenchy after photographing him and his designs for various magazines. After one shoot, Vaccaro joined Givenchy and his partner Philip by their pool and taught the designer how to use a camera, which Vaccaro of course documented with his own point-and-shoot.

 

Eartha Kitt at Givenchy’s showroom in 1961.Tony Vaccaro, courtesy of Monroe Gallery

Vaccaro caught the frenzy chaos of a fitting with superstar Eartha Kitt at Givenchy’s Paris showroom. To the right, you can spot the shutterbug holding his camera, “just having fun.”
The Fashion Train, New York, 1960

Tony Vaccaro’s “The Fashion Train” 1961Tony Vaccaro  Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography

Vaccaro took this picture in 1960 for Good Housekeeping of a fashion model walking through a smoke-filled train. He strove for naturalism in his fashion shoots. “Over time I was able to remove anything artificial – even poses,” he said. “I put my subjects in an environment — their favorite environment — and then I took photos.”

Tony Vaccaro’s “Fun in Finland” 1965. The model on the left, Anja Lehto, would later become his wife.Tony Vaccaro  Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography

Vaccaro shot many campaigns for the Finnish brand, Marimekko, mainly because he was in love with one of the company’s models, Anja Lehto, shown here on the left. “I met her in 1961, when LIFE magazine sent me to 57th Street, between Park and Madison, to photograph [the brand],” he recalled. “Girl number one came in, did her walk, girl number three, girl number four — I looked at her and said, ‘That’s my wife.’” It took a couple years and photoshoots — Lehto was married to Finnish royalty at the time — but the two got hitched in 1963 and had two children. (She died in 2013.)
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Tony Vaccaro’s “The Guggenheim Hat” 1960 Tony Vaccaro  Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography

Vaccaro had incredible freedom in his photo shoots, and when LOOK magazine sent him this sculptural hat to shoot for a story, he immediately knew he wanted to photograph the model Isabella wearing it in front of his favorite museum, the Guggenheim in New York City.

Tony Vaccaro The Centennial Exhibition New York Pop Up December 13-18, 2022

21 Spring Street, NY

Tony Vaccaro The Centennial Exhibition Santa Fe ongoing through January 15, 2023

112 Don Gaspar Avenue, Santa Fe, NM