TURIN – Alfred Eisenstaedt’s portraits of the “short century”
In Turin, the CAMERA – Centro Italiano per la Fotografia presents a major new exhibition celebrating the work of Alfred Eisenstaedt, undisputed master of 20thth century photojournalism. Eisenstaedt is the author of the famous photograph taken on V-J Day in Times Square, showing a U.S. Navy sailor kissing a total stranger. He was one of the principal photographers of Life magazine, for which he chronicled the world and its contemporaneity with a curious and amused gaze.
Curated by Monica Poggi, the exhibition presents a selection of 150 images, many of which have never been exhibited before. These include his early photographs from 1930s Germany, where he captured disturbing images of Nazi leaders, including the iconic portrait of Joseph Goebbels.
The first retrospective in Italy since 1984, open until September 21, traces the entire span of Eisenstaedt’s career, from the giddy life of the United States of the economic boom, to post-nuclear Japan, to his final works produced in the 1980s.
Alfred Eisenstaedt was born in Germany in 1898 to a Jewish family. In 1935, he emigrated to the United States to escape racial laws, and the following year he began working with the American magazine Life, for which he produced some of his best-known features. While Eisenstaedt’s style fits into the great American documentary tradition, his Jewish upbringing is evident in his work through his attention to human detail and the idea that every face tells a unique story.
(Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock – Sailor kissing nurse during the celebration of Victory over Japan Day at Time Square, New York City, New York, 15th August 1945)