Alfred Eisenstaedt

Alfred Eisenstaedt (December 6, 1898 – August 23, 1995) was a German-born American photographer and photojournalist. He began his career in Germany prior to World War II but achieved prominence as a staff photographer for Life magazine after moving to the U.S. Life featured more than 90 of his pictures on its covers, and more than 2,500 of his photo stories were published.

Among his most famous cover photographs was V-J Day in Times Square, taken during the V-J Day celebration in New York City, showing an American sailor kissing a nurse in a "dancelike dip" which "summed up the euphoria many Americans felt as the war came to a close", in the words of his obituary. His family was Jewish and moved to Berlin in 1906. Eisenstaedt was fascinated by photography from his youth and began taking pictures at age 11 when he was given his first camera, an Eastman Kodak Folding Camera with roll film. He served in the German Army's artillery during World War I and was wounded in 1918. While working as a belt and button salesman in the 1920s in Weimar Germany, Eisenstaedt began taking photographs in 1928 as a freelancer for the Pacific and Atlantic Photos' Berlin office, which was taken over by the Associated Press in 1931.

Professional photographer

thumb|Eisenstaedt signing a "[[V-J Day in Times Square" print on August 23, 1995, at his Menemsha cabin on Martha's Vineyard. He died a few hours later.]]

Eisenstaedt became a full-time photographer in 1929 when he was hired by the Associated Press office in Germany, and within a year he was described as a "photographer extraordinaire."

In 1935, Fascist Italy's impending invasion of Ethiopia led to a burst of international interest in Ethiopia. While working for Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, Alfred took over 3,500 photographs in Ethiopia, before emigrating to the United States, where he joined Life magazine, but returned in the following year to Ethiopia to continue his photography.

Eisenstaedt's family was Jewish. Oppression in Hitler's Nazi Germany caused them to emigrate to the U.S. and joined fellow Associated Press émigrés Leon Daniel and Celia Kutschuk in their PIX Publishing photo agency founded that year. The following year, 1936, Time founder Henry Luce bought Life magazine, and Eisenstaedt, already noted for his photography in Europe, He remained a staff photographer from 1936 to 1972, achieving notability for his photojournalism of news events and celebrities.

Style and technique

From his early years as professional photographer he became an enthusiast for small 35 mm film cameras, especially the Leica camera. Unlike most news photographers at the time who relied on much larger and less portable 4"×5" press cameras with flash attachments, Eisenstaedt preferred the smaller hand-held Leica, which gave him greater speed and more flexibility when shooting news events or capturing candids of people in action.

At the time, this style of photojournalism, with a smaller camera with its ability to use available light, was then in its infancy.

Personal life

After first settling in New York City in 1935, Eisenstaedt lived in Jackson Heights, Queens (NYC) for the rest of his life. He met Kathy Kaye, a South African woman, and married her in 1949. The couple had no children and remained together until her death in 1972. Until shortly before Eisenstaedt's death, he would walk daily from his home to his Life office on the Avenue of the Americas and 51st Street.

He died in August 1995 at age 96 at his Martha's Vineyard vacation cottage named "Pilot House", in the company of his sister-in-law, Lucille Kaye, and a photographer friend, William E. Marks.

He was buried at Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, Queens.

Notable Eisenstaedt photographs

V-J Day in Times Square

Eisenstaedt's most famous photograph is of an American sailor grabbing and kissing a stranger—a young woman—on August 14, 1945, in Times Square. He took this photograph using a Leica IIIa. (The photograph is known under various names: V-J Day in Times Square, V-Day, and others.) Because Eisenstaedt was photographing rapidly changing events during the V-J Day celebrations, he stated that he did not get a chance to obtain names and details, which has encouraged a number of mutually incompatible claims to the identities of the subjects.

Portraits of Sophia Loren

The portraits of Sophia Loren have been described by Marianne Fulton of The Digital Journalist as conveying mischievousness, dignity, and love on the part of both Eisenstaedt and Loren.

Ice Skating Waiter, St. Moritz

This 1932 photograph depicts a waiter at the ice rink of the Grand Hotel. "I did one smashing picture", Eisenstaedt wrote, "of the skating headwaiter. To be sure the picture was sharp, I put a chair on the ice and asked the waiter to skate by it. I had a Miroflex camera and focused on the chair."

Children at a Puppet Theatre, Paris

Eisenstaedt took this photo in 1963 at the Tuileries Garden. He later recalled in his self-portrait, "It took a long time to get the angle I liked. There are some close-ups of the children that are good. But the best picture is the one I took at the climax of the action. It carries all the excitement of the children screaming, 'The dragon is slain! The photo sold in Lot #91 at Sotheby's in 2006 for an artist-record price of $55,200.

Awards and recognition

1989: National Medal of Arts. Awarded by President George H. W. Bush in a ceremony on the White House lawn.
1999: The Digital Journalist chose Alfred Eisenstaedt as its 'Photojournalist of the Century'. Dirck Halstead wrote, "When it came to choosing the one photojournalist who had the most profound impact, and who leaves the greatest legacy, there was no question whom that person is – Alfred Eisenstaedt."
2020: Eisenstaedt was posthumously inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum.

Exhibitions

Alfred Eisenstaedt: "Eisie" at 88, International Center of Photography, New York City, 1986. A retrospective.
Alfred Eisenstaedt: Life and Legacy, the San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, 2019.