Elliott Erwitt

Elliott Erwitt's photography operates on a frequency of gentle, intelligent humor. Born in Paris to Russian parents, his family's flight from the Nazis led him to New York via Milan, a peripatetic childhood that perhaps sharpened his eye for the universal in the everyday. After studying film and working in a commercial darkroom, he was drafted into the army, where he served as a photographer's assistant. His big break came when Robert Capa invited him to join the cooperative Magnum Photos in 1953. Erwitt never fit a single genre; he was equally at home on advertising shoots, documenting Nikita Khrushchev and Richard Nixon's famous 'Kitchen Debate,' or crafting visual one-liners on city streets. His most enduring images are often silent comedies: a tiny dog towered over by its owner's giant boots, a reflection that creates an illusion, a couple's argument framed by a car window. He worked almost exclusively in black and white, believing color was a distraction, and his compositions are masterclasses in timing and framing. For over six decades, Erwitt produced a body of work that reminds us not to take life—or ourselves—too seriously.