Eisenstaedt: Remembrances [Hardcover]

Alfred Eisenstaedt (Author), Doris C. O'Neil (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1990

Alfred Eisenstaedt is one of the lengendary photographers of this century and a pioneer in the field of journalism. This book presents a look at his work, from his first days in Germany in the 1930s through his long career at "Life" magazine, where more than 2500 assignments, including 86 covers, led him on adventures around the world. Included in this selection of 140 photographs are pictures of the famous people of the 20th century such as statesmen, writers, actors, scientists, artists and politicians, as well as portraits of ordinary people.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you really want to know what the 20th century looked like from a front-row seat at the main stage, this book will show you. Alfred Eisenstaedt, who was born in 1898 and lived until 1995, apparently didn't miss a thing. To give but a glimpse of the view he captured, this volume, published on the hundredth anniversary of his birth, includes scores of his most famous photographs. The portrait of a scowling Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Culture and Propaganda, showing exactly what educated evil looks like; a sultry Marilyn Monroe, somewhat fuzzy around the edges because the flustered photographer used the wrong film; the adorable Mary Martin (pre-Pan), girlishly singing a Cole Porter tune; Jackie Kennedy, radiant, seated between her husband and the man who would succeed him; Bertrand Russell; Martin Buber; Helen Keller; Albert Einstein; Gordon Parks; Rebecca West; Learned Hand--they're all here.

There is no way for any collection to do real justice to a photographer of Eisenstaedt's reach, but this book goes far, including not just the celebrity images but many others that give a keen sense of the times in which he lived. There is a streetwalker in knee-high boots on the Rue Saint-Denis; a polished Rolls-Royce in front of the Ritz; an aged accordionist begging for a living outside Carnegie Hall; a Mississippi fiddler.

Like those of his contemporaries Cartier-Bresson, Lartigue, and Kertész, Eisenstaedt's photographs stop you in your tracks, their meanings more complexly layered with every passing decade. Take his shot of 5- and 6-year-olds, wide-eyed and screaming at a puppet show in a Paris park in l963, just as television was beginning its long, depressing siege on childhood's imaginative realm. Or the image of women in their spring chapeaus, taking afternoon tea on the roof of the Excelsior Hotel in Florence in 1934, pretending that their pleasant world would endure. The historical resonance of such images is what makes this a thinking person's book, but of course it is possible to love it just for the celebrities, nearly all of them now gone. --Peggy Moorman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In 1927 Eisenstadt sold his first photograph to a Czechoslovakian newspaper; less than a decade later he was pioneering the practice of pictorial journalism for Henry Luce's Life . The rest, as this latest collection of his works attests, is history. With the help of O'Neil, director of exhibitions and vintage prints at Life , Eisenstadt has assembled a trip down memory lane that is overwhelming in historical scope and is utterly pleasurable proof of his stature as the father of photojournalism. From the outset of his career, "Eisie" focused a keen eye on topical subjects: in the 1930s he photographed Hitler, Goebbels and Mussolini, as well as Garbo, Toscanini and Bernard Shaw, and recorded the dying embers of prewar glamour in Europe. In the '40s and '50s his lens captured such Hollywood greats as Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren, along with writers W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot. Between portraits of the famous reproduced here are equally recognizable images of anonymity: a sailor grabbing a Victory Day kiss at Times Square, children shrieking at a Parisian puppeteer's show.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown & Co (T); 1st edition (October 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082121778X
• ISBN-13: 978-0821217788
• Product Dimensions: 12.1 x 9.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #473,227 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple Genius, March 24, 2001

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 110,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Eisenstaedt: Remembrances (Paperback)

Many people consider Mr. Alfred Eisenstaedt the defining photojournalist of the 20th century. His best known work is probably the photograph of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square on VJ Day in 1945. In this superb volume, you can test that assessment with your own eyes. The images in this book were culled from over 290,000 frames available to the editor. I found the quality to be remarkably and consistently high. The reproduction quality is more than adequate as well.

Mr. Eisenstaedt straddles the 20th century almost perfectly. He was born in West Prussia in 1898 and died in 1995. He started photography as a hobby while a youngster, and only turned it into a livelihood as a 31 year-old man. He served in the German army in World War I and was severely wounded in the legs in Flanders during 1918. While recuperating, he visited art museums to study the compositions the painters used. It was time well spent. Later he would comment, "I seldom think when I take a picture." "But, first, it's most important to decide on the angle at which your photograph is to be taken." After the war, he sold belts and buttons. But he continued to take photographs as a hobby.

His big break came when he photographed a women's tennis match in 1927. Discouraged with the results, it was pointed out that the image of the woman serving in one frame would work well if everything else was cropped out. This image is in the book for your reference. This photograph immediately sold, and he was encouraged to come back with more. By 1929 he was doing well enough to start photography full-time.

Because of the rise of the Nazis and the popularity of photojournalism in the United States, Mr. Eisenstaedt came to the New York in 1935 where he visited Time. There he learned about plans for a new weekly photography magazine, LIFE, and became one of four staff photographers in 1936 when the magazine started. Over the years more than 80 of his photographs graced its cover.

Sophia Loren was his favorite assignment, and Ernest Hemingway was his least (Hemingway tried to throw him off the dock).

"I like photographing people only at their best." "This means making them feel relaxed and completely at home with you in the beginning."

Unlike most portrait photographers, he was informal. "I always prefer photographing in available light." His approach to equipment was similarly simple. "A Leica, a couple of lenses, a few rolls of film -- that's all he needed."

Totally devoted to his art he said, "I will never retire," and he never did.

Familiarly known to his friends and colleagues as "Eisie," "'Cold fish' or 'horrible man' were his epithets. 'Unbelievable' was his word for wonder."

These details and observations are taken from the excellent introduction by Bryan Holme.

I found Mr. Eisenstaedt's work here to be amazingly luminescent. He captures a spiritual glow in his subjects and in nature. Realizing that he was using natural light, the images and detail are very well illuminated regardless, much like what you find in Ansel Adams's work. His people have an animation of body and personality that makes the viewer feel more alive as well. Whether professional actor or ordinary person, they each resonate with the viewer through intense and attractive emotion.

Here are some of my favorite images (reduced to fit the space allowed): Italian officer sledding, 1933; Toscanni, early 1930s; La Scala, 1934; Carriage, near La Scala, 1934; George Bernard Shaw, 1932; Ruth Bryan Owen, 1934; Robert Oppenheimer, 1947; Albert Einstein, 1949; Bertrand Russell, 1951; Dancers pause, 1936; Roofs of Prague, 1947; Trees in snow, 1947; Janet MacLeod, 1937; Katherine Hepburn, 1938; Carole Lombard, 1938; VJ Day, 1945; Edward R. Murrow, 1959; John F. Kennedy and Caroline, 1960; Dame Edith Evans, 1951; Marilyn Monroe, 1953; Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen, 1949; Frank Lloyd Wright, 1956; Alec Guinness, 1951; W. Somerset Maugham, 1942; Robert Lowell, 1959; Charlie Chaplin, 1966; W.H. Auden, 1955; Children watching, 1963; Gunter Grass, 1979; Norman Rockwell, 1974; Gilbert Murray, 1951; Menemsha harbor, 1937; Thomas Hart Benton, 1969; First lesson, 1930; Propeller, 1951; Willie Mays, 1954; Leonard Bernstein conducting, 1960; and Tree-lined road, 1978. The effects of well-known painting compositions on these images will be obvious to you.

After you view these photographs, I suggest that you try your hand at capturing people at their best with your camera. Once you get to be reasonably good at that, I encourage you to try to catch them at their best without your camera. Practice the skill of subtly encouraging people to fulfill their potential. That will make you a person of simple genius, as well.

Evoke the best!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Light and more light, August 30, 2005

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Eisenstaedt: Remembrances (Paperback)

Eisenstaedt was for more than four decades a central maker of those images through which America held up a mirror to itself, and to the world. His remarkable persistence helped produce some of the most famous photographs of the twentieth century, including the signature- piece photograph of the sailor kissing the nurse at Times Square on V-J Day. Though he presented many pictures of scenes from everyday life in America he is perhaps best known for portraits of the famous, from all walks of life. His Blanchard and Davis captures the pugnacious spirit of the great West Point running duo, his Buckley family portrait captures the casual elegance of America's most famed Conservative intellectual family, his cold camera catches the very epitome of evil hatred in the famed photoportrait of Goebbels, his most difficult subject Hemingway nonetheless projects a somewhat misleading strength and solidity.
Eisenstaedt loved his work and lived for it. And there is a certain special kind of light which emanates from his best photographs, the light of life seen into , recaptured on film and presented to us as gift for our immediate viewing and deeper reflection.
I by the way strongly recommend reading the more extensive and simply better review by Donald Mitchell of the Eisenstaedt work which also appears on the Amazon site.

5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing, March 16, 2010

By 

C Burns (Marietta, GA, USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Eisenstaedt: Remembrances (Hardcover)

Enjoyed these photos thoroughly and was most intrigued by the particulars of specific photos mentioned in the Introduction. I flipped back and forth from the Intro to those photos to get a sense of Eisenstaedt's vision and feeling about each one. Wonderful coffee table book!