Elliot Erwitt

In conversation with the legendary Magnum photographer who died this month, at the age of 95, at his home in New York.

I went to New York to interview the 90-year old ceramicist Eva Zeisel. Photographer Elliott Erwitt took her portrait. I liked him so much, I asked if I could interview him as well. This was the summer of 2008.

A short obituary in The Sunday Times, described him as the photographer of American life and political history, with a career spanning over 70 years, and the subject of numerous exhibitions at such institutions as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, and the Barbican in London.

In conversation with…

Elliott Erwitt is a legendary Magnum photographer. In his studio are boxes labelled with things like ‘New York, 1956, Marilyn Monroe’. He was the in-house photographer at the White House during the Camelot years. He took pictures of the first Soviet missile. And he’s published more than 20 books on subjects ranging from American architecture to a monograph of pictures of people in museums. Many of his images are known throughout the world, particularly the ones of dogs — I bet you know the trio Felix, Gladys and Rover (1974), showing a Great Dane, a woman’s legs, and a Chihuahua in a woolly hat. And yet he’s so, well, humble.