W. Eugene Smith

William Eugene Smith, born in 1918, decided at 14 to borrow his mother’s camera to take pictures at the local airport and became hooked.  In high school, he photographed for local newspapers in Wichita. He later destroyed these early photos as too poor to preserve.  He said “I had an intuitive sense of timing, an impossibly poor technique, and excitement to the fact of the event rather than of interpretive insight.”

“No matter where, what, or whom he was shooting, Smith drove himself relentlessly to create evocative portraits that revealed the essence of his subjects in a way that touched the emotions and conscience of viewers,” per PBS.org.    Smith’s works remain a plea for the causes of social justice, a testament to the art of photography.

Many of his editors considered him “‘troublesome’ because of his steadfast refusal to allow his pictures, layouts, and often the text that went with them to be molded by the policy of the magazines or anything else other than his personal vision,” from Images for w eugene smith.

 Smith was a manic-depressive and his addictions to alcohol and amphetamines compounded his situations in life. 

Entering Notre Dame in 1936, Smith’s pictures so impressed the faculty and administration that a special photographic scholarship was created for him.  He left a year later because of “friendly but hackneyed’ demands that were made on his work.

W. Eugene Smith

1945

WORLD WAR II. The Pacific Campaign. February 194...

PAR46293 Magnum Photos

In 1942, Smith became a war correspondent with Ziff-/Davis (/flying & popular photography.  Smith was in the bloody island to island fighting in the Pacific, 26 carrier combat missions and 13 invasions, being on Okinawa on D-Day.

“I wanted my pictures to carry some message against the greed, the stupidity and the intolerances that cause these wars," per PBS.org.

Smith was seriously wounded on Okinawa.  While recuperating, Smith took a walk with his 2 children, worked through the pain, and took the award-winning picture of his children (A Walk to Paradise Garden)

Between 1947 & 1954, Smith produced the great photo-essays for Life (Country Doctor, 1948, Spanish Village 1951, Southern Midwife 1951 and Man of Mercy 1955).  These essays were preceded by tears, tantrums, threats to quit, even suicide threats.

Smith received the Guggenheim Fellowship twice in 1956-57 & 1958-59 and set new standards for artistic control and was revered for combating the forces of Life magazine.

Smith left his wife and 4 children, almost broke the agency Magnum, was ostracized from the photography world, and moved to NYC to devote himself to photography in his loft, taking pictures out of his window.

In 1971 Smith went to Japan to do a photographic and literary study of the devastating effects of corporate pollution in the fishing village of Minamata, where he was beaten by thugs, adding to his physical and mental problems.

He accepted a teaching position at the Center for Creative Photography at University of Arizona, where he had a series of strokes and died at 59 but looking years older.