Elliott Erwitt

American, b. Paris 1928

Born in Paris in 1928 to Russian parents, Erwitt spent his childhood in Milan, then emigrated to the US, via France, with his family in 1939. As a teenager living in Hollywood, he developed an interest in photography and worked in a commercial darkroom before experimenting with photography at Los Angeles City College. In 1948 he moved to New York and exchanged janitorial work for film classes at the New School for Social Research.

Erwitt traveled in France and Italy in 1949 with his trusty Rolleiflex camera. In 1951 he was drafted for military service and undertook various photographic duties while serving in a unit of the Army Signal Corps in Germany and France.

While in New York, Erwitt met Edward Steichen, Robert Capa and Roy Stryker, the former head of the Farm Security Administration. Stryker initially hired Erwitt to work for the Standard Oil Company, where he was building up a photographic library for the company, and subsequently commissioned him to undertake a project documenting the city of Pittsburgh.

In 1953 Erwitt joined Magnum Photos and worked as a freelance photographer for Collier's, Look, Life, Holiday and other luminaries in that golden period for illustrated magazines. To this day he is for hire and continues to work for a variety of journalistic and commercial outfits.

In the late 1960s Erwitt served as Magnum's president for three years. He then turned to film: in the 1970s he produced several noted documentaries and in the 1980s eighteen comedy films for Home Box Office. Erwitt became known for benevolent irony, and for a humanistic sensibility traditional to the spirit of Magnum.

Education

1948/50    Film, New School for Social Research, New York, USA
1942/44    Photography, Los Angeles City College, Los Angeles, USA

Exhibitions

Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., USA
Art Institute of Chicago, USA
Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France
Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
New South Wales Museum of Art, Australia
The Barbican, London, UK
Camera Work, Berlin. Germany
NRW-Forum Düsseldorf, Germany
Kunsthaus, Zurich, Switzerland
Photokina, Cologne, Germany

Books

2008        Elliott Erwitt's Dogs, teNeues, Germany
2008        Elliott Erwitt's New York, teNeues, Germany
2006        Personal Best, teNeues, Germany
2005        Woof, Chronicle Books LLC, USA
2003        Elliott Erwitt’s Handbook, The Quantuck Lane Press/W.W. Norton & Company, USA
2002        Snaps, Phaidon Press Ltd., USA
1999        DogsDogs, Phaidon Press Ltd., USA
1999        Museum Watching, Phaidon Press Ltd., USA
1994        Between the Sexes, W.W. Norton & Company, USA
1991        On the Beach, W.W. Norton & Company, USA
1992        To the Dogs, DAP/Scalo, Zurich
1988        Personal Exposures, W.W. Norton & Company, USA
1974        Son of Bitch, Viking, USA
1972        Photographs and Anti-Photographs, New York Graphic Society, USA