Arts & Culture

Elliott Erwitt: Personal Best

A collection of photographs spanning the career of Elliot Erwitt gathering together many of his most remarkable images alongside many that have never before been published

Elliott Erwitt

Personal Best New York City, USA. 2000. © | Magnum Photos

In the 1990s Elliot Erwitt was increasingly showing the images that put him squarely in the firmament of the revered period of fine art photography in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Many of these images had not been seen since that time.

Personal Best New York City, USA. 1953. © | Magnum Photos
Elliott Erwitt | Personal Best Marlene Dietrich at the Paris Ball at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. April, 1959. © Elliott Erwitt | Magnum Photos
Elliott Erwitt | Personal Best New York, USA. 1999. © Elliott Erwitt | Magnum Photos
Elliott Erwitt | Personal Best Tuscany. 1949. © Elliott Erwitt | Magnum Photos
Elliott Erwitt | Personal Best New York City, USA. 1974. © Elliott Erwitt | Magnum Photos

They demonstrate a conscious breaking of the rules for the then-contemporary photographic standards – perfect exposure, full tonal range, sharp focus, traditional composition – coupled with an existential “tough love” treatment of America, cloaked in the aura of the film noir motion pictures of the period that hung over this generation of photographers.

Personal Best The engagement party of Grace KELLY and Prince RAINIER of Monaco at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. New York City, USA. January 1956. © | Magnum Photos

Like his peers of that time, there is the unselfconscious striking out to create a deliberate style or signature of his own. With that in mind, “Personal Best” gathers together many of Erwitt’s most remarkable images alongside many that have never before been published.

Personal Best Provence, France. 1955. © | Magnum Photos
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