Elliott Erwitt: Retrospective closed on 1 May 2006. For details of our current exhibitions, take a look at our what’s on page.
The UK premiere of a major retrospective of Elliott Erwitt’s work, featuring over 100 images from the 1950s to the present day.
Humour and sensitivity is always apparent in Erwitt’s work: as the photographer himself said, ’I’m very serious about not being serious’. However, on occasion, his images do speak of personal experience and the more sombre and troubling moments in modern history.
Erwitt’s career has included pictures of the most notable figures in politics, art, and entertainment of the post-war era—many of which were included here. His more whimsical scenes offer anecdotes of street life, leisure, modern institutions, the family, pets, celebrity and religion. His way of seeing is both compassionate and intelligent, touching on the things that bind and separate people in culture and society.
© Elliott Erwitt / Magnum Photos
Biography
Elliott Erwitt was born Elio Romano Erwitz in Paris on 26 July 1928. The son of Russian émigré parents, he spent his formative years in France and Italy, before migrating to America in 1939.
In the 1940s Erwitt considered both photography and filmmaking as future careers. Shortly before he was drafted into the US army in 1951, he made important professional links with photographer Robert Capa and the curator of MoMA Edward Steichen. During national service Erwitt produced memorable photographs of army life; with Capa's support, he joined Magnum on leaving the army in 1953.
Erwitt’s vision developed during the post-war rise of photojournalism, capturing life’s poignant ironies in a quirky and highly individual style. Historically, Erwitt is part of a European tradition of documentary reportage that includes photographers such as Robert Doisneau and Henri Cartier-Bresson; photographers who captured images of the everyday that were both poetic and revealing in their account of the human condition.
