Jackie Kennedy Arlington Virginia 1963Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive

Vale Elliott Erwitt (1928-2023)

December 2023

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
New York City
1955
Gelatin silver print

The essence of what happens

Elliott Erwitt’s “art of observation” is a gift of the eye and the mind, where the artist must be truly aware of the world around them in order to capture the mosaic of reality.

Look at the photograph Jackie Kennedy, Arlington, Virginia (1963, below). Observe the split second that particular look of despair was present on Jackie’s face. And there was Erwitt fully aware, in the moment, with his gift of the eye and the mind – and he knew, he absolutely knew that was the moment to take the photograph.

As with much of his work it is the subtle cadences within the image that create their emotional power and magic: sadness, happiness, whimsy, comedy, anger, loneliness, joy – all captured through the reality of the visual language of the image, fully acknowledged in the heart and the mind of the viewer when they imbibe (absorb the ideas) of their spirit.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“The work I care about is terribly simple … I observe, I try to entertain, but above all I want pictures that are emotion.”

Elliott Erwitt. Personal Exposures. W. W. Norton & Company, 1988

“You either see, or you don’t see.”

“You can take a picture of the most wonderful situation and it’s lifeless, nothing comes through… Then you can take a picture of nothing, of someone scratching his nose, and it turns out to be a great picture.”

“The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things with words. To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”

“All the technique in the world doesn’t compensate for the inability to notice.”

Elliott Erwitt

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023) 'Pasadena, California, USA' Nd from Vale Elliott Erwitt (1928-2023)

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
Pasadena, California, USA
Nd
Gelatin silver print

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023) 'USA. California. Berkeley' 1956 from Vale Elliott Erwitt (1928-2023)

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
USA. California. Berkeley
1956
Gelatin silver print

Photographers with a comic outlook on life seldom win the acclaim granted to exalters of nature or chroniclers of war and squalor. Elliott Erwitt, who died at 95 on Wednesday at his home in Manhattan, was an exception.

For more than six decades he used his camera to tell visual jokes, finding material wherever he strolled. His sharp eye for silly, sometimes telling conjunctions – a dog lying on its back in a cemetery, a glowing Coca-Cola machine amid a public display of missiles in Alabama, a mangy potted plant in a tacky Miami Beach ballroom – earned him constant assignments as well as the affection of a public that shared his sweet, Chaplin-esque sense of the absurd.

Richard B. Woodward. “Elliott Erwitt, Whose Photos Are Famous, and Often Funny, Dies at 95,” on The New York Times website Nov. 30, 2023 [Online] Cited 03/12/2023

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023) 'USA. New York, New York' 1953 from Vale Elliott Erwitt (1928-2023)

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
USA. New York, New York
1953
Gelatin silver print

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
Felix, Gladys and Rover (New York, USA)
New York City, 1974
Gelatin silver print

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
Moscow, USSR
1959
Gelatin silver print

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023) 'Jackie Kennedy, Arlington, Virginia' 1963. © Elliott Erwitt/MAGNUM PHOTOS

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
Jackie Kennedy, Arlington, Virginia
1963
Gelatin silver print

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
Wilmington, North Carolina
1950
Gelatin silver print

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
Paris, France
1989
Gelatin silver print

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
USA. New York City
1988
Gelatin silver print

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
Pittsburgh, USA
1950
Gelatin silver print

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
Brazil. Buzios
1990
Gelatin silver print

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
Guanajuato, Mexico
1957
Gelatin silver print

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
France, Paris, Lucienne Van Kan
1952
Gelatin silver print

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
Fort Dix, USA
1951
Gelatin silver print

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
Bakersfield, USA
1983
Gelatin silver print

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
Bal, Paris, France
1967
Gelatin silver print

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
Spain, Valencia
1952
Gelatin silver print

Elliott Erwitt (American born France, 1928-2023)
Huntsville, Alabama
1974
Gelatin silver print

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Archive: Elliott Erwitt’s Archive  to be Housed at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin

October 2010

Many thankx to the Harry Ransom Center for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Elliott Erwitt (American, 1928-2023)
USA. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 1950.
Gelatin silver print
© Elliott Erwitt/MAGNUM PHOTOS

Elliott Erwitt (American, 1928-2023)
Jackie Kennedy, Arlington, Virginia, 1963.
Gelatin silver print
© Elliott Erwitt/MAGNUM PHOTOS

Elliott Erwitt (American, 1928-2023)
Nikita Khrushchev and Richard Nixon, Moscow, 1959.
Gelatin silver print
© Elliott Erwitt/MAGNUM PHOTOS

The archive of photographer Elliott Erwitt (b. 1928), which includes more than 50,000 signed photographic prints, will be housed at the Harry Ransom Center, a humanities research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin. Spanning more than six decades of Erwitt’s career, the archive covers not only his work for magazine, industrial and advertising clients but also photographs that have emerged from personal interests. Collectors and philanthropists Caryl and Israel Englander have placed the archive at the Ransom Center for five years, making it accessible to researchers, scholars and students.

Born in Paris to Russian émigré parents, Erwitt spent his formative years in Milan and then immigrated to the United States, living in Los Angeles and ultimately New York. In 1948, Erwitt actively began his career and met photographers Robert Capa, Edward Steichen and Roy Stryker, all who would become mentors. In 1953, Erwitt was invited to join Magnum Photos by Capa, one of the founders of the photographic co-operative. Ten years later, Erwitt became president of the agency for three terms. A member of the Magnum organisation for more than 50 years, Erwitt’s archive will be held alongside the Magnum Photos collection at the Ransom Center. While many of Erwitt’s photographs capture the famous, from Richard Nixon arguing with Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow in 1959 to Jacqueline Kennedy at her husband’s funeral, other subjects include everyday people, places and even dogs, a longtime love of Erwitt’s.

“The work I care about is terribly simple,” said Erwitt in “Personal Exposures” (1988). “I observe, I try to entertain, but above all I want pictures that are emotion. Little else interests me in photography. Today, so much is being done by unemotional people, or at least it looks that way…I mean, work that’s fascinating and fun and clever and technically brilliant. But if it’s not personal, then it misses what interesting photography is about.”

Exhibitions of Erwitt’s work have been featured at institutions ranging from The Museum of Modern Art in New York to The Museum of Modern Art in Paris, and his work is represented in numerous major institutions.

“Whether capturing the everyday or the extraordinary, Erwitt’s work always has a wonderful element of accessibility,” said Ransom Center Director Thomas F. Staley. “Housing the collection here adds a new dimension to that access.”

In addition to providing access to the archive, the Ransom Center will promote interest in the collection through lectures, fellowships and exhibitions.”

Text from the Harry Ransom Center website

Elliott Erwitt (American, 1928-2023)
USA. Reno, Nevada. 1960.
(on the set of the film The Misfits with Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift and Clark Gable)
Gelatin silver print
© Elliott Erwitt/MAGNUM PHOTOS.

Elliott Erwitt (American, 1928-2023)
CUBA. Havana. 1964.
(Che Guevara)
Gelatin silver print
© Elliott Erwitt/MAGNUM PHOTOS

Archivist Amy Armstrong inspects a box from the archive of Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt
Image courtesy of Harry Ransom Center
Photo: Pete Smith

The Harry Ransom Center
21st and Guadalupe Streets
Austin, Texas 78712
Phone: 512-471-8944

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Harry Ransom Center website

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