Eliot’s main contribution, aside from his photographs themselves, was to help awaken Westerners to the true humanity of Africa. 84 Warren Robbins, Tribute to Africa, 1973 In 2013–2014, the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., celebrates the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives with a retrospective on the African photography and art collection of Eliot Elisofon (1911 –1973).1 The exhibition, Africa ReViewed: The Photographic Legacy of Eliot Elisofon, invites visitors to consider, some six decades later, the impact of Elisofon’s photographs of Africa and its peoples. The show reflects on his thirty years of travel in Africa, photographing for LIFE magazine, collecting, writing, filmmaking, and producing television programs. It features selected works of art from Elisofon’s personal collection in conversation with his vintage black-and-white prints, early color slides, experimental studio photography, motion picture films, and television programs. Elisofon was a pivotal figure in the creation of popular representations of Africa during the post-war period and independence years. From 1947–1972, he undertook eleven expeditions to Africa for LIFE magazine and other publishers and producers. His photographs were widely published, including several feature stories on African art, politics, and nature in LIFE.2 In an age before television, Elisofon brought Africa into people’s living rooms—particularly in America—through his colorful images, which introduced audiences to a continent rich in artistic traditions and cultural diversity. More than any other photographer in the mid-twentieth century, Elisofon’s images of Africa in the mass media framed Euro-American perceptions of the continent and its peoples. In Africa ReViewed, the visitor comes to appreciate Elisofon’s special love of African sculpture, which he both collected and photographed in Africa. The exhibition displays a select number of objects from his collection, some in combination with photographs of the actual object being created, used, worn, or performed. Specific attention is given to Elisofon’s experimental photography of By Amy J. Staples works of art in his studio with innovative visual techniques— multiple exposures, strobe lighting, repetitive flash, and composite prints—to highlight the formal and functional qualities of the objects. This focus on the creative, experimental nature of Elisofon’s photographic practice and his contributions to a modernist aesthetic has clear ties to the work of Pablo Picasso and other Cubists, who reclassified African sculptures (formerly “primitive” artifacts) as works of modern art in the early twentieth century.3 Through his art photography, Elisofon incorporated a Cubist sensibility that brought the study and appreciation of African sculpture into the world of photography and impacted how we see and interpret the arts of Africa. A Journey into the Arts of Africa Elisofon’s work as a photojournalist during the U.S. North African campaign in WWII is a period that framed his early fascination with Africa and its arts and cultures.4 Covering the landings of American troops in Casablanca in 1942, he became the first news photographer to produce action pictures in Tunisia. Elisofon’s photograph of General George S. Patton riding a tank at Fort Benning, Georgia, became LIFE magazine’s first full-color cover (fig. 1).5 It was the first of twenty-eight cover photographs that Elisofon would produce during his tenure with LIFE from 1947–1964. Five years later, in 1947, LIFE sent Elisofon on his first official assignment to sub-Saharan Africa to photograph the visit of King George VI to Cape Town, South Africa. His assignment completed, Elisofon was determined to explore Africa by land. Over the next four months, he retraced the famous “Cape Town to Cairo” route6 (fig. 2) by automobile, paddle steamer, motor ship, and train, and he photographed the peoples of Central Africa, East Africa, and the Nile region along the way. In the course of his travels, Elisofon visited the Kuba peoples in Mushenge village, Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and befriended King (Nyim) Mbopey Mabiintsh ma-Kyeen (reigned 1939–d. 1969). Their friendship and collaboration led to an enduring royal portrait of the king in full coronation regalia, featured full page in FIG. 1: Major General George S. Patton, Jr., in his personal tank, Second Armored Division, Ft. Benning, Georgia. LIFE magazine, Defense Issue, U.S. Arms, July 7, 1941. Photograph by Eliot Elisofon, 1941. Photograph by Eliot Elisofon, 1941. Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images. FIG. 2 (right, behind): Map tracing Elisofon’s 1947 route from Cape Town to Cairo. Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives. National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution. FIG. 3 (right, top center): Kuba Nyim (ruler) Mbopey Mabiintsh ma-Kyeen (r. 1939–69), Mushenge, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Photograph by Eliot Elisofon, 1947. Vintage silver gelatin print. Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives. National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution. FIG. 4 (right, top right): Installation view of Africa ReViewed: The Photographic Legacy of Eliot Elisofon featuring a brushed aluminum print of Kuba Nyim (ruler) Mbopey Mabiintsh ma-Kyeen. National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution. Photo: Franko Khoury. FIG. 5 (right, center): Kuba sculptor carving an elephant, Mushenge, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Photograph by Eliot Elisofon, 1947. Vintage silver gelatin print. Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives. National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution. ART on view Africa ReViewed: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC LEGACY OF ELIOT ELISOFON
CoverT71_FR.qxd_CoverF Vuvi
To see the actual publication please follow the link above