An exhibit of nature and portrait photographs is on view at M.V. Museum.
By
Abby Remer
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Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898 – 1995) was one of the most respected photojournalists of the 20th century. He photographed kings and dictators — including the first meeting of Mussolini and Hitler. He photographed Oppenheimer, Einstein, and the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as movie stars and everyday people. He is perhaps best known for his iconic image of a U.S. Navy sailor kissing a stranger in Times Square on Victory over Japan Day on August 14, 1945.
Eisenstaedt contributed over 2,500 photographs and 92 cover photos for LIFE magazine where he worked from 1937 to 1972.
And a gem of an exhibition, “Eisenstaedt’s Martha’s Vineyard,” is on exhibit at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum through August 25.
Other than a single, superb portrait of Eisenstaedt on the Brooklyn Bridge by Annie Leibovitz — the dapper gentleman, dressed in a vest, herringbone jacket, red bowtie, and pocket handkerchief — the exhibit is of Eisenstaedt’s photographs of his beloved Martha’s Vineyard.
Sent on a LIFE magazine assignment, in a wonderful audio recording by oral historian, Linsey Lee, Eisenstaedt talks of being brought over by speedboat because the ferry was on strike, landing in Edgartown. “[I] landed in Edgartown Harbor where I spent the night, I think in the Great Harbor Inn, at the time … Edgartown was very elegant. You had to be dressed up … I liked it so much that I came back two months later.” And he kept coming, staying up-Island either in Gay Head or Menemsha, until he died in 1995.
Among the majority of photographs from his assignments, there are a handful of personal images. The Island offered a place to experiment with photography, especially of people, a luxury he couldn’t afford while on assignment. Eisenstaedt explains, “I had two books of the Vineyard, and they were done out of love. And it was not an assignment. I could take my time and waited for the right light. And so, I experimented with films and filters all the time … Other people play tennis and do all kinds of things, and I photographed.”
An extreme close-up of flowers taken from below with the solid blue sky makes them seem to sing. He says in the audio, “In Menemsha, I took many pictures of flowers against the sun … I liked nature very much. I never got … many nature assignments because the editor thought that I clicked with people.”
A photograph of the Cliffs at sunset in Aquinnah, about which he said, “In all my life, I had never imagined something like this could exist in nature. It was so unbelievably beautiful that it made my eyes fill with tears.”
There’s another of a giant oak tree that fills the entire picture frame, about which he said, “It’s not easy to photograph this tree as it looks. If I went any closer, it would spoil the composition. The object was to keep the right side in balance with the left.”
Most of the photographs, though, come from Eisenstaedt’s multiple LIFE magazine photo essays of the Vineyard. He was well known for his masterful, candid photojournalistic approach. “I like photographing people only at their best,” he said. “This means making them feel relaxed and completely at home with you from the beginning.”
His images capture notable Vineyarders such as Manuel Swartz Roberts, celebrated for the boats he built in a sail loft on Edgartown Harbor, now the Old Sculpin Gallery. Roberts, hard at work amid the disarray of his workshop, candidly looks up, and Eisenstaedt reveals the very spirit of the man.
Tom Thatcher is seen at work in his ceramic studio. Thatcher’s studio, started in 1951, quickly became an attraction. In the early 1960s, he was instrumental in forming the community of Vineyard artists, especially potters, who rose alongside the boom of the hippie culture.
The gathering of Islander portraits include one of Nanetta Cassaundra Wilhelmina Vanderhoop Madison, a member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah, a schoolteacher, columnist for the Gazette, and married to Napoleon Madison, the Tribe’s Medicine Man.
Thomas Hart Benton and his daughter, Jessie, are there. Eisenstaedt knew Benton well and photographed him multiple times. Over the years, Benton gave him sketches of Eisenstaedt. One, from 1945, is in the show.
Benton introduced Eisenstaedt to other Island artists, writers, and thinkers, including Denys Wortman, who took over the New York World newspaper cartoon “Metropolitan Movies.” Eisenstaedt photographs him from behind, sitting working in his studio on Hines Point, looking up into a mirror, looking at us.
His many photo-essays for LIFE, which had an enormous readership, helped put the Island into the national consciousness long before “Jaws” and presidents and today’s celebrities. “He curated the Vineyard for the country for people who didn’t have access to it,” reflects curator of exhibitions Anna Barber.
“Eisenstaedt’s Martha’s Vineyard” runs through August 25 at the M.V. Museum. For more information, visit mvmuseum.org/exhibition/eisenstaedts-marthas-vineyard/?blm_aid=7155713.
