Alfred Eisenstaedt The professor of World Photography on Chamber exhibition in Turin in the thirtieth of death – Carlo Franza’s blog

Known above all for the famous photography VJ Day in Times Squarein which a sailor kisses a nurse in the midst of a festive crowd in New York at the end of the Second World War, Alfred Eisenstaedt is the protagonist from 13 June to 21 September of a great exhibition in Chamber spaces – Italian Center for Turin photography.

An unpublished exhibition – thirty years after the death of the photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt and twenty -five from the last exhibition in Italy – capable of bringing to light their multifaceted and constantly evolving talent, retracing his career as a photographer for the magazine “Life” and his unique ability to tell the world with an ironic and poetic gaze.

Eighty years after the construction of the famous shot in Times Square, the exhibition – curated by Monica Poggi – traces the whole span of its production, presenting a selection of 170 images, many of which never exhibited, starting from the first photographs taken in Germany in the 1930s. Work that led him to consolidate themselves as a photojournalist and receive the first commissions in Europe, followed by those received in the United States of the economic boom and post-nuclear Japan. A successful path, which will end in the eighties with other shots on the characters of the show and politics.

The exhibition itinerary is traced precisely starting from the geography of the existence of Eisenstaedt, highlighting not only the changes that occurred in the places he crossed, but also the evolution of the language he used to tell them. Born in 1898 in Dirschau, in Western Prussia (today Poland), Eisenstaedt has a first random approach with photography during adolescence, when an uncle gives him an Eastman Kodak nr. 3 that will accompany him during all years of study. Abandoned the photographic medium at the outbreak of the First World War, he resumes him on his return from the front, and what initially seems a pastime soon becomes, even without too much awareness, a career.

Between the 1920s and 1930s, the photographer tells the world of aristocracy in an amused and ironic way, whose extravagance intrigues him; These are the years of the shots of families on vacation in Saint Moritz, but also of the image of a tennis player on the field, the first photograph that sells to the weekly Der Weltspiegel, marking the beginning of his career. Starting from this moment, he receives assignments and clients from the main German magazines of the period, which will make him travel throughout Europe as a photojournalist.
Among the various political events that documents, the rise of Nazi -fascism is particularly remembered – it is his powerful portrait of Joseph Goebbels of 1933 who looks in the car with a grim and disturbing expression – and the first historic meeting between Mussolini and Hitler in Venice in 1934.

In this period Eisenstaedt describes his photographs as Candid, that is, capable of enclosing the spontaneous essence of the moment, despite a strong theatrical charge. Inspired by the light and composition of the paintings of the ancient masters, the photographer realizes poetic and harmonious shots, including his iconic photographs of classical dance dancers, in which the echo of Degas’s painting resonates. However, his gaze is not only poetic, in many cases it is also ironic and sometimes related to the surrealist aesthetic widespread in Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century.

In 1935, to escape racial laws, Eisenstaedt emigrated to the United States and in 1936 he began to collaborate with the famous American magazine “Life” for which he will sign some of his best known services. Matched in the great journalistic tradition of the Old Continent, its style changes progressively, moving on to the documentation of the rapid progress of American society. He leaves pictorial photography to give space to society in turmoil, observed with disenchanted gaze: his shots become so dynamic, moved, with details out of focus and starring the streets of New York. Over his long career in the editorial staff of “Life”, Eisenstaedt publishes more than 2500 services and over 90 covers, but his best known photo remains that of the VJ day in Times Square.

After the war Eisenstaedt often returns to Europe, photographing in particular Italy and France who had already portrayed before fleeing to the United States. In 1947 he went to Italy and portrays the profound changes in our country. Instead of the monuments and historical places of the first reports, now advertising and road billboards fill the image space, showing a company launched to a new season of economic well -being. In 1963 Paris visits again but, instead of portraying the elegance and opulence of the aristocracy, he focused on the faces of ordinary people, capturing passers -by and markets of the markets in his shots.

Unlike important photographers of the time and points of reference in the world of photography, including the colleague of “Life” Margaret Bourke-White, Eisenstaedt does not document the war but portrays the reasons and consequences generated in the companies, telling its decline and rebirth.
The photographer also realizes services to tell the consequences of conflicts in different countries, such as the Ethiopia resumed before and after the Italian imperialist invasion, Japan where the emperor Hirohito in civilian clothes observes the ruins left by the outbreak of the two atomic and Israel bombs photographed in the aftermath of his birth.

On the exhibition there is also a section dedicated to the portraits of famous people made since the early years of career, with political leaders and celebrities who have marked the century. Among these we find Sophia Loren, whose shot in lingerie, which appeared on the cover of “Life” in 1966, aroused scandal or those of Maria Telkes, Albert Einstein and J. Robert Opppenheimer, who offer us his gaze on some of the brightest minds of the twentieth century. Also in this context, the human evolution of the figures portrayed emerges: Oppenheimer, in particular, is portrayed for the first time in 1947 with a bold gaze and then again in 1963, this time with the expression distinctive by the weight of the consequences of his research. Camera is therefore a precious rediscovery of a master of photography, proposed through the most famous and lesser known shots, which reveal all the facets of his work: not one but many Alfred Eisenstaedt.

Alfred Eisenstaedt was born in 1898 in a wealthy family of western Prussia and grows in Berlin, Where he develops a deep passion for music from an early age, which will accompany him throughout his life. At fourteen he received his first camera as a gift, a Kodak, but his youth is soon interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War: he is enrolled and is seriously injured. During the long convalescence he attends museums by studying the light and composition of the great painters of the past. In the 1920s, while working as a buttons of buttons and belts, he returned with increasing interest in photography. Buy a Zeiss camera and start selling some photographs to illustrated magazines. In the first half of the 1930s, his career takes off, travels to Europe to portray political events and celebrities, and his work was published on some of the most relevant newspapers of the period, such as “Die Dame”, “Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung”, “Graphic” and “London Illustrated News”. With the rise of Nazism, the situation in Germany becomes dangerous for a photographer of Jewish origin. After immortalizing the regime figures such as Goebbels and Hitler, and having made an important reportage in Ethiopia, in 1935 Eisenstaedt emigrated to the United States, settling in New York. The following year he was hired by the magazine “Life”, becoming one of the most important photographers of the magazine. In 1945, during the celebrations for the end of the war, he made the famous shot of the sailor who kissed a nurse in Times Square. Starting from the second half of the 1940s he travels tirelessly all over the world: he documents the reconstruction of Japan, he returns to Ethiopia, visits Israel and photographs characters such as Alfred Einstein, J. Robert Opppenheimer, Ernest Hemingway, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Sophia Loren. At the same time, he receives numerous international awards and publishes several photographic volumes that celebrate the importance of his work. Despite the advanced age, he continues to work: in 1993, now ninety -five years old, his last photo taken, portraying the family of the American president Bill Clinton. Two years later, in 1995, he died in his beloved house in Martha’s Vineyard.

Carlo Franza