Contact sheet images of a bikini-clad Elizabeth Taylor on the set of Suddenly Last Summer (1959) cover the windows at Milk Gallery. Compelling to look at, they are the work of Burt Glinn.
“Burt Glinn: Retrospective” is a sampling of images taken by the noted photographer. From American high school students
and British aristocrats to Fidel Castro and Robert Kennedy to the Beats and the
Rat Pack, Glinn captured some of the defining people and moments of his day.
Born in Pittsburgh in 1925, he received his first camera—a
Kodak Monitor folding camera—from his aunt on his 12th birthday. From
then on photography became his passion. He served as an artilleryman in
the US Army during World War II and studied at Harvard
where he shot photos for the Harvard
Crimson. After graduation Glinn worked as an assistant at Life Magazine before he, Eve Arnold, and
Dennis Stock were asked to join Magnum Photos in 1951, the first Americans to
be invited. Three years later he became a full member and would later serve
twice as Magnum’s president. During his half-century long career, Glinn's work took him around the globe and earned him high praise including the Mathew Brady Award for Magazine Photographer of the Year in 1959
for his colour series of the South Seas. The man who once
said, “The most important thing that a photographer like me
can have is luck” passed away in 2008.
The photos in the exhibit are striking
and leave you wanting more (I’d especially like to see some of Glinn’s
colour work). While I enjoyed the images of famous people—Jack Kerouac
flirting at a party, an exquisite portrait of Twiggy—my favourite may have been
this image above, “Delinquents run from a cop,
Snoqualmie, WA.” The shadowy figures seem like something out of Peter Pan, two lost boys being chased by
Captain Hook (look at the cop’s right hand). And you can almost hear the scream coming from the one boy's open mouth. It’s just wonderful and a perfect
example of why Glinn was such a great photographer.
“Burt Glinn: Retrospective” is at Milk Gallery through May
10. For more info, visit here.
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