Tony Vaccaro

Tony Vaccaro, was born on December 20, 1922, in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, USA. He was the second child of three (the only boy) of his Italian immigrant parents. In 1926, the family moved back to Bonefro in Italy, where Tony spent his youth. With the outbreak of World War II, Tony Vaccaro moved back to the United States in order to escape the Fascist regime. In the U.S., seventeen-year old Vaccaro finished his education at the high school of New Rochelle, New York. In 1943, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to Europe in 1944. While serving as a Private in the Intel Platoon of the 2nd Battalion, 331st Regiment, 83rd Infantry Division, he took photos from Normandy to Berlin, Germany, because his task as a scout left him with enough free time during the day to shoot photos, which was a hobby since living in New York. By the end of the war in Europe, he had become an official Photographer for the division's newspaper. In September 1945, he was discharged from the Army. Vaccaro stayed in Germany, where he got a job first as a photographer for the U.S. authorities stationed at Frankfurt, and then with Weekend, the Sunday supplement of the U.S. Army newspaper Stars and Stripes. Until 1949, Vaccaro photographed throughout Germany and Europe, documenting post-war life. His penchant for capturing thoughtfully melancholy scenes that provoke emotions of war and peace all rolled into one magnificent photograph later brought him world-wide fame. Tony Vaccaro is a highly acclaimed American photographer who is most well-known for the compelling photographs he took in Europe between 1944 throughout and after World War II. After his infantry military service, he became a renowned fashion and lifestyle photographer for U.S. magazines and photographed some of the most famous celebrities ever known. WWII documentary film "Saving Fela" Producers featuring his work said: "Tony Vaccaro is widely regarded as having generated the greatest single collection of WWII photographs by any one person. He achieved this not by being a member of the Signal Corps, but by being a young private in the 83rd Infantry Division, carrying a gun in one hand and a camera in the other. Through the lens of his Argus C-3, Tony captured the experience of the war from Normandy to Berlin, and during the German occupation after the war, like no other photographer. In the aftermath of the war, Tony stayed on in Germany as a photographer for "Stars and Stripes" until 1949, covering the crucial, historic period in which the country emerged from chaos to reconstruction. Upon returning home from the war, Tony became a highly influential photographer for Look, Life, and Flair magazines, capturing candid and revealing portraits of numerous cultural icons that shaped the second half of the twentieth century." Tony has received numerous distinctions, including the French Legion d'honneur. His monumental work continues to be exhibited around the world. He was also recently featured in BBC's six-part series, "Genius of Photography." Michael A. Vaccaro's work covers a rich mixture of photojournalism, celebrities, and fashion. His photographic career was launched with a baptism of fire in the battlefields of WWII. Thereafter, armed with a portfolio of over 4,000 images and a Purple Heart, he became Chief Photographer at Flair magazine. A subsequent freelance career contracted photography for Look, Venture and Life magazines. Many of the techniques he used were developed by Tony himself, and are now standard practice amongst today's photographers. These photographs are featured in the photo biography Picture War series of books collected and written by David Marttir Vaccaro, Tony's son. David recounts, "Tony got his job back in the U.S. working for Look magazine by showing his combat photos and nothing else. Fleur Coles hired him based on that alone to photograph the famous people" in Picture Peace - the next volume in the biography of Tony Vaccaro. After his return to the U.S. in 1949, he worked for Life and Look before joining the magazine Flair. Photographs from his extensive (despite some 4,000 pictures having been lost in an accident in 1948) wartime archive were published in 2001 in his book Entering Germany: Photographs 1944-1949. In 1994, he was awarded the French Légion d'honneur at the celebrations of the fifty-year anniversary of the Normandy landings.