Alfred Eisenstadt (1898-1995)

LIFE Photojournalist

Early life

German-born Jewish American photojournalist

Began taking photos at age 14 Served in German army during WWI Freelance photographer for Pacific

and Atlantic Photos’ Berlin office (later taken over by the Associated Press)

Professional Life, Pre-LIFE

Became a full-time photographer in 1929

Notable early photos: Hitler and Mussolini Waiter on Ice Skates Joseph Goebbels

In London, 1932 (age 34)

Hitler and Mussolini

Waiter on Ice Skates

“In 1933, I traveled to Lausanne and Geneva for the fifteenth session of the League of Nations. There, sitting in the hotel garden, was Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda. He smiles, but not at me. He was looking at someone to my left…. Suddenly he spotted me and I snapped him. His expression changed. Here are the eyes of hate. Was I an enemy? Behind him is his private secretary, Walter Naumann, with the goatee, and Hitler’s interpreter, Dr. Paul Schmidt…. I have been asked how I felt photographing these men. Naturally, not so good, but when I have a camera in my hand I know no fear.”

– Alfred Eisenstadt

Coming to America: 1935 Brooklyn, New York One of the first four staff photographers

for LIFE magazine (1936-72) The others were Margaret Bourke-White,

Thomas McAvoy and Peter Stackpole Stayed on staff until the magazine

closed in 1972 90 covers

1937: Cynthia the Mannequin

“Once she achieved a certain level of fame, gossip columnists began writing about Cynthia as if she were a living, breathing socialite. When partygoers tried to engage the mannequin in conversation, Gaba begged off by claiming she was suffering from a touch of laryngitis.”

Cynthia about town…

“Maybe, just maybe, we’re all dummies.” –Life.com

Marilyn Monroe, 1953

Ballet dancers, 1936

1940s: THE HEARTACHE OF WARTIME FAREWELLS

VJ day, 1945

Eisenstaedt saw a sailor running around Times

Square trying to grab any girl in sight…and thus an

iconic photo was snapped

“Like so many of Alfred Eisenstaedt’s most famous photographs, this one flirts with sentimentality — but avoids that ignoble fate by virtue of its energy, and its immediacy. This is not a depiction of manufactured emotion, but a masterfully framed instant of authentic, explosive spirit.”

-Ben Cosgrove,Editor of LIFE.com

The drum major for the University of Michigan marching band rehearses as

admiring children fall in line, 1950.

Critical reception

PBS Documentary The “quintessential” Life photographer

– NYTimes obituary Awards/honors:

Presidential Medal of Arts Infinity Master of Photography Award, given

by the International Center of Photography 1951 "Photographer of the Year" by the

Encyclopedia Britannica and the University of Missouri School of Journalism

Preoccupations Style

Documentary Humanity Culture Emotions

Line/geometry High contrast Black and

white

1938, County Fair

My Work…

My Work…

My Work…