Background
Lucien Aigner was born on September 14, 1901 in Nové Zámky, Nitra, Slovakia. He was the son of Adolf and Carola (Stern) Aigner.
filmmaker Photographer photojournalist writer
Lucien Aigner was born on September 14, 1901 in Nové Zámky, Nitra, Slovakia. He was the son of Adolf and Carola (Stern) Aigner.
Lucien Aigner studied at Prague University, Friedrich-Wilhelm University and University Budapest.
His first camera, a Brownie, was acquired at age nine and was used to photograph his family. By 1926, Aigner was a reporter for Az Est, the Hungarian newspaper group, and soon became a photographer with them. During this time, Aigner started using a Leica camera.
As the Paris correspondent of the London General Press at the Stresa Conference of 1935, Aigner photographed Benito Mussolini, who was about to sneeze as the picture was taken. The photo made the cover of Newsweek in 1940, and established Aigner as a photojournalist. In 1941 he emigrated from France to the United States to escape Nazi persecution.
Lucien L. Aigner then spent time at Princeton University taking photographs of Albert Einstein. The photos of Einstein are among Aigner's most famous, and were reportedly Einstein's favorite photos of himself.
He died in Waltham, Massachusetts.
(ICP library of photographers)
1979Married Anne Lenard, November 19, 1932 (divorced 1953). Children: John, Steven, Anne-Marie Rowan, Katherine Collins. Married Mildred A. Allen, July 2, 1955.
