Background
Eliot Elisofon was born on April 17, 1911 in New York, United States. He was the son of Samuel and Sarah (Narazimski) Elisofon.
(In 1969, Life photographer Eliot Elisofon gained an insid...)
In 1969, Life photographer Eliot Elisofon gained an insider's access to the dream homes and private lives of Hollywood's most intriguing legends, from Mary Pickford to Natalie Wood, George Cukor to Tony Curtis. As Hollywood Life reveals, the styles of a stars' homes are as diverse as the personalities who dwell in them. Whether Mediterranean, Tudor, or designed by such uber-chic Hollywood decorators as Billy Haines and Tony Duquette, together these houses create the hodgepodge that is Hollywood style.
https://www.amazon.com/Hollywood-Life-Glamorous-Homes-Vintage/dp/0972778829/?tag=2022091-20
2004
Eliot Elisofon was born on April 17, 1911 in New York, United States. He was the son of Samuel and Sarah (Narazimski) Elisofon.
Eliot Elisofon graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1929 and Fordham University in 1933.
From 1938 to 1942 Eliot Elisofon ran a commercial photography studio called August and Co.making photographs for advertising and fashion. He pursued his personal work on the side and studied the work of photographers he admired.
In 1937 Eliot Elisofon met the photographer and filmmaker Willard Van Dyke who introduced him to Harper's Bazaar art director Alexey Brodovitch, who in turn introduced him to Beaumont Newhall, the curator of photography at MoMA and Tom Maloney, the editor of U.S. Camera. His New York street work was exhibited at the Pennsylvania Museum of Art and the Julien Levy Gallery. In 1938 his series Playgrounds of Manhattan was exhibited at the New School. He was hired as a photographer in the Federal Writers' Project series These Are Our Lives in 1939.
Eliot Elisofon taught at many institutions, including the Institute of American Artists School (1936-1941), the New School (1938), the Clarence H. White School of Photography (November 1940 - April 1941), the Photo League (1941), the New School for Social Research (1942), the Museum of Modern Art, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as Yale University, Syracuse University, Radcliffe College, Wellesley College, and Sarah Lawrence College.
Elisofon’s first assignments for Life magazine appeared in 1937, Tin Type Photographer and Jewish New Year, and in 1941 his image of General Patton was the first color cover of Life. He was the only photographer to accompany Gen. Patton throughout the North African Campaign. His photographs became an exhibition titled The Tunisian Triumph, which opened in June 1943 at MoMA and traveled to 20 cities in the United States. From 1942 to 1964 he was a staff photographer for Life magazine.
Eliot Elisofon travelled to six continents, covering an estimated 2,000,000 miles. His work appeared in Life magazine for almost 30 years and 19 books of his work were published during his lifetime. He made 11 trips to Africa, photographing, making films and collecting art and donated his extensive collection of African art and photographic archive of over 80,000 images to what became the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. In 2013 the museum celebrated the 40th Anniversary of the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives and art collection with the exhibition Africa Re-Viewed: The Photographic Legacy of Eliot Elisofon.
(In 1969, Life photographer Eliot Elisofon gained an insid...)
2004Quotations: "Art, to be true art, must grow out of human beings and it must help human beings live a better and fuller life. It must extend the field of feeling and vision we are born with."
Member Harvard Peabody Museum New Guinea expedition, 1961. Member Royal Anthropological Society. Clubs: Overseas, Explorers (New York City).
Eliot Elisofon was married twice, in 1940 to Mavis Lyons whom he divorced in 1946, and to Joan Baker Spear in 1950, with whom he had two daughters Elin and Jill