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W. Eugene Smith
William Eugene Smith (December 30, 1918 – October 15, 1978) was an American photojournalist. He has been described as "perhaps the single most important American photographer in the development of the editorial photo essay." His major photo essays include World War II photographs, the visual stories of an American country doctor and a nurse midwife, the clinic of Albert Schweitzer in French Equatorial Africa, the city of Pittsburgh, and the pollution which damaged the health of the residents of Minamata in Japan. His 1948 series, Country Doctor, photographed for Life, is now recognized as "the first extended editorial photo story".
William Eugene Smith was born in Wichita, Kansas, on December 30, 1918, to William H. Smith and his wife Nettie (née Lee). Growing up, Smith had become fascinated by flying and aviation. When Smith was 13, he asked his mother for money to buy photographs of airplanes. His mother instead lent him her camera and encouraged him to visit a local airfield to take his own photos. When he returned with his exposed film, she developed the pictures for him in her own improvised darkroom.
By the time he was a teenager, photography had become his passion; he photographed sports activities at Cathedral High School and at the age of 15 his sports photos were published by Vigil Cay, sports editor at the Wichita Press. On July 25, 1934, The New York Times published a photo by Smith of the Arkansas River dried up into a plate of mud, evidence of the extreme weather events that were devastating the Midwest. These weather conditions had a disastrous effect on agriculture. Smith's father, who was a grain dealer, saw his business head towards bankruptcy and he committed suicide.
Smith graduated from the Wichita North High School in 1936. His mother used her Catholic church connections to enable Smith to obtain a photography scholarship which helped to fund his tuition at the University of Notre Dame, but at the age of 18 he abruptly quit university and moved to New York City. By 1938 he had begun to work for Newsweek where he became known for his perfectionism and thorny personality. Smith was eventually fired from Newsweek; he later explained Newsweek wanted him to work with larger format negatives but he refused to abandon the 35 mm Contax camera he preferred to work with. Smith began to work for Life magazine in 1939, quickly building a strong relationship with then picture editor Wilson Hicks.
Smith married Carmen Martinez in 1941, with whom he had five children – their first, Marissa, born in 1942; Juanita (unknown birth year); K. Patrick, in 1943; Shana, in 1953; and Kevin, in 1956. After divorcing Martinez, Smith married Aileen Mioko, a Japanese American environmental activist, in 1971. After ending his relationship with Mioko, he began a relationship with photographer Sherry Suris and moved in with her in New York after completing Minamata in 1974.
In September 1943, Smith became a war correspondent for Ziff-Davis Publishing and also supplied photos to Life magazine. Smith took photos on the front lines in the Pacific theater of World War II. He was with the American forces during their island-hopping offensive against Japan, photographing U.S. Marines and Japanese prisoners of war at Saipan, Guam, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Smith's awareness of the brutality of the conflict sharpened the focus of his ambition. He wrote "You can't raise a nation to kill and murder without injury to the mind... It is the reason I am covering the war for I want my pictures to carry some message against the greed, the stupidity and the intolerances that cause these wars and the breaking of many bodies." Ben Maddow wrote: "Smith's photographs of 1943 through 1945 show his swift development from talent to genius." In 1945, Smith was seriously injured by mortar fire while photographing the Battle of Okinawa.
In 1946, he took his first photograph since being injured: a picture of his two children walking in the garden of his home which he titled The Walk to Paradise Garden. The photograph became famous when Edward Steichen used it as one of the key images in the exhibition The Family of Man, which Steichen curated in 1955. After spending two years undergoing surgery, Smith continued to work at Life until 1955.
Between 1948 and 1954 Smith photographed for Life magazine a series of photo essays with a humanist perspective which laid the basis of modern photojournalism, and which were, in the estimate of Encyclopædia Britannica, "characterized by a strong sense of empathy and social conscience."
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W. Eugene Smith
William Eugene Smith (December 30, 1918 – October 15, 1978) was an American photojournalist. He has been described as "perhaps the single most important American photographer in the development of the editorial photo essay." His major photo essays include World War II photographs, the visual stories of an American country doctor and a nurse midwife, the clinic of Albert Schweitzer in French Equatorial Africa, the city of Pittsburgh, and the pollution which damaged the health of the residents of Minamata in Japan. His 1948 series, Country Doctor, photographed for Life, is now recognized as "the first extended editorial photo story".
William Eugene Smith was born in Wichita, Kansas, on December 30, 1918, to William H. Smith and his wife Nettie (née Lee). Growing up, Smith had become fascinated by flying and aviation. When Smith was 13, he asked his mother for money to buy photographs of airplanes. His mother instead lent him her camera and encouraged him to visit a local airfield to take his own photos. When he returned with his exposed film, she developed the pictures for him in her own improvised darkroom.
By the time he was a teenager, photography had become his passion; he photographed sports activities at Cathedral High School and at the age of 15 his sports photos were published by Vigil Cay, sports editor at the Wichita Press. On July 25, 1934, The New York Times published a photo by Smith of the Arkansas River dried up into a plate of mud, evidence of the extreme weather events that were devastating the Midwest. These weather conditions had a disastrous effect on agriculture. Smith's father, who was a grain dealer, saw his business head towards bankruptcy and he committed suicide.
Smith graduated from the Wichita North High School in 1936. His mother used her Catholic church connections to enable Smith to obtain a photography scholarship which helped to fund his tuition at the University of Notre Dame, but at the age of 18 he abruptly quit university and moved to New York City. By 1938 he had begun to work for Newsweek where he became known for his perfectionism and thorny personality. Smith was eventually fired from Newsweek; he later explained Newsweek wanted him to work with larger format negatives but he refused to abandon the 35 mm Contax camera he preferred to work with. Smith began to work for Life magazine in 1939, quickly building a strong relationship with then picture editor Wilson Hicks.
Smith married Carmen Martinez in 1941, with whom he had five children – their first, Marissa, born in 1942; Juanita (unknown birth year); K. Patrick, in 1943; Shana, in 1953; and Kevin, in 1956. After divorcing Martinez, Smith married Aileen Mioko, a Japanese American environmental activist, in 1971. After ending his relationship with Mioko, he began a relationship with photographer Sherry Suris and moved in with her in New York after completing Minamata in 1974.
In September 1943, Smith became a war correspondent for Ziff-Davis Publishing and also supplied photos to Life magazine. Smith took photos on the front lines in the Pacific theater of World War II. He was with the American forces during their island-hopping offensive against Japan, photographing U.S. Marines and Japanese prisoners of war at Saipan, Guam, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Smith's awareness of the brutality of the conflict sharpened the focus of his ambition. He wrote "You can't raise a nation to kill and murder without injury to the mind... It is the reason I am covering the war for I want my pictures to carry some message against the greed, the stupidity and the intolerances that cause these wars and the breaking of many bodies." Ben Maddow wrote: "Smith's photographs of 1943 through 1945 show his swift development from talent to genius." In 1945, Smith was seriously injured by mortar fire while photographing the Battle of Okinawa.
In 1946, he took his first photograph since being injured: a picture of his two children walking in the garden of his home which he titled The Walk to Paradise Garden. The photograph became famous when Edward Steichen used it as one of the key images in the exhibition The Family of Man, which Steichen curated in 1955. After spending two years undergoing surgery, Smith continued to work at Life until 1955.
Between 1948 and 1954 Smith photographed for Life magazine a series of photo essays with a humanist perspective which laid the basis of modern photojournalism, and which were, in the estimate of Encyclopædia Britannica, "characterized by a strong sense of empathy and social conscience."