W. EUGENE SMITH

Eugene Smith, American, 1918-1978

At the age of 15, Smith was drawn to news photography and worked on assignments for the Wichita Eagle and the Wichita Beacon while still in high school. He earned a photography scholarship to Notre Dame University in Indiana, but left after only one year and went to New York where he got a job at Newsweek. In 1938 he joined Black Star agency where he worked as a freelance photographer for magazines including Life, Collier's and Harper's Bazaar. Early in his career Smith realized that photography had the power to raise social consciousness and affect change. Smith was eager to have his photographs seen by a wider audience and to photograph the most poignant and pressing stories so he joined Life magazine in 1939. Although he had an on-and-off relationship with them until 1955, he was one of their most highly respected photographers. In 1942 Smith worked for the publishing firm Ziff-Davis covering the war in the South Pacific. Frustrated that he couldn't get close enough to the action, he returned to Life in 1944. In 1945, while documenting the invasion of Okinawa, Smith was hit by shrapnel and was unable to work for almost two years while he recovered from his wounds. After such a long break from making photographs, he wanted his next image to be significant. The result was a photograph of his two children walking out of the woods into the light called "Walk in Paradise Garden". It was such a strong image that Edward Steichen used it in his 1955 exhibition and book entitled, The Family of Man.