Elliott Erwitt | A Survey

Exhibition Dates: November 13, 2010 – January 15, 2011

The gallery is pleased to host the first Canadian exhibition of work by the acclaimed photographer Elliott Erwitt.

Born in Paris in 1928 to Russian parents, Erwitt spent his childhood in Milan and then emigrated to the US, via France, with his family in 1939. As a teenager living in Hollywood, he developed an interest in photography and worked in a commercial darkroom before experimenting with photography at Los Angeles City College. In 1948, he moved to New York and exchanged janitorial work for film classes at the New School for Social Research.

Erwitt traveled in France and Italy in 1949 with his trusty Rolleiflex camera. In 1951, he was drafted for military service and undertook various photographic duties while serving in a unit of the Army Signal Corps in Germany and France.

While in New York, Erwitt met Edward Steichen, Robert Capa and Roy Stryker, the former head of the Farm Security Administration. Stryker initially hired Erwitt to work for the Standard Oil Company, where he was building up a photographic library for the company, and who subsequently commissioned him to undertake a project documenting the city of Pittsburgh.

In 1953, Erwitt joined Magnum Photos Agency and worked as a freelance photographer for Collier's, Look, Life, Holiday and other luminaries in that golden period for illustrated magazines. To this day he is for hire and continues to work for a variety of journalistic and commercial outfits.

In the late 1960s, Erwitt served as Magnum's president for three years. He turned his efforts to film and in the 1970s he produced several noted documentaries and eighteen comedy films for Home Box Office in the 1980s. Erwitt became known for benevolent irony, and for a humanistic sensibility traditional in the spirit of Magnum.