Elliot Erwitt Snaps

One of the leading photographers of his generation Elliott Erwitt (b.1928) has been taking pictures since the late 1940s. A member of the prestigious Magnum agency since 1954 he has photographed all over the world and his images have been the subject of many books and exhibitions. Containing over 500 pictures over half of which have never been published before Elliott Erwitt Snaps is a unique and comprehensive survey of his work. From famous images such as Nikita Khrushchev and Richard Nixon arguing in Moscow in 1959 and Marilyn Monroe with the cast of the movie The Misfits to his many more personal images of places things people and animals Erwitts unmistakable often witty style gives us a snapshot of the famous and the ordinary the strange and the mundane over a period of more than half a century through the lens of one of the periods finest image-makers. The book is arranged in nine chapters each with a one-word title: Look Move Play Read Rest Touch Tell Point Stand. For Erwitt whose photography is a study and celebration of life these are the basic actions of life - the things people do. The photographs are not intended to illustrate the words but the words act as a means of grouping and organizing making broad connections and also playing with pun and ambiguity in keeping with the visual games Erwitt plays.