VENICE, ITALY - (ACNI) On Thursday, June 18, 2009, the Italian auction house San Marco Casa d'Aste will offer a stamped silver gelatin print of one of the 20th century's most recognizable images: Alfred Eisenstaedt's photograph of an American sailor kissing a young nurse on V-J Day in New York's Times Square. (Internet live bidding provided by www.LiveAuctioneers.com.)
Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898-1995) was a German-American photographer and photojournalist renowned for his candid photographs. He is best known for his picture of a sailor who spontaneously planted a kiss on a young woman after learning that Japan had surrendered and World War II was over.
Because of the hectic swirl of events occurring in Times Square at the time he snapped the shot, Eisenstaedt was unable to get the names of the couple. Over the years, no fewer than 11 men and three women have come forward to identify themselves as the subjects, but the faces in the photograph are not visible, and a positive identification has never been made.
In the book Eisenstaedt on Eisenstaedt: A Self-Portrait, the photographer recalls the fortuitous moment: "I saw a sailor running along the street grabbing any and every girl in sight. Whether she was a grandmother, stout, thin, old, didn't make a difference. I was running ahead of him with my Leica, looking back over my shoulder, but none of the pictures that were possible pleased me. Then suddenly, in a flash, I saw something white being grabbed. I turned around and clicked the moment the sailor kissed the nurse. If she had been dressed in a dark dress I would never have taken the picture. If the sailor had worn a white uniform, the same. I took exactly four pictures. It was done within a few seconds."
Eisenstaedt was born into a Jewish family in Dirschau (Tczew) in West Prussia, Imperial Germany. His family moved to Berlin in 1906. Eisenstaedt served in the German Army's artillery during World War I, being wounded on April 9, 1918. While working as a belt and button salesmen in 1920s Weimar, Germany, Eisenstaedt began taking photographs as a freelancer for the Berliner Tageblatt.
In 1929, he began to work fulltime as a photographer and even took pictures at a meeting that year between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Italy. Other notable photos taken by Eisenstaedt in his early career include a waiter iceskating in St. Moritz in 1932 and Joseph Goebbels at the League of Nations in Geneva in 1933. Although initially friendly, Goebbels reportedly scowled for the photograph when he learned that Eisenstaedt was Jewish.
Because of Nazi oppression, Eisenstaedt emigrated to the United States in 1935, where he lived in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York, for the rest of his life. From 1936 to 1972, Eisenstaedt worked as a photographer for Life magazine, which ran his pictures on a total of 90 covers.
The silver gelatin print in San Marco Casa d'Aste's June 18 auction measures approximately 9 inches by 7 inches, and is estimated at $16,700-$21,000. View the catalog lot and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet as the sale is taking place at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
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