Featured photo for exhibit Tony Vaccaro

Tony Vaccaro

Renaissance

2018-11-23 - 2019-01-27

Santa Fe, NM -- Monroe Gallery of Photography is honored to present “Tony Vaccaro: Renaissance” Friday, November 23 through January 27, 2019.

2018 was a renaissance year for Tony Vaccaro, with recent exhibits in New York, London, Italy, and Pottsdam, Germany; culminating with this major exhibition at Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe that celebrates his 96th birthday on December 20. At the age of 21, Tony was drafted into the war, and by the spring of 1944 he was photographing war games in Wales. By June, now a combat infantryman in the 83rd Infantry Division, he was on a boat heading toward Omaha Beach, six days after the first landings at Normandy. Denied access to the Signal Corps, Tony was determined to photograph the war, and had his portable 35mm Argus C-3 with him from the start. For the next 272 days, Tony fought on the front lines of the war. He entered Germany in December 1944, a private in the Intelligence Platoon, tasked with going behind enemy lines at night. After the war, Tony remained in Germany to photograph the rebuilding of the country for Stars And Stripes magazine. Returning to the US in 1950, Tony started his career as a commercial photographer, eventually working for virtually every major publication: Look, Life, Harper’s Bazaar, Town and Country, Newsweek, and many more. Tony went on to become one the most sought after photographers of his day.