Elliott Erwitt R.I.P

I was saddened to hear of the death of the great American photographer Elliott Erwitt on Wednesday and have fond memories of his visit to Oxford to come and speak as part of a series of talks and signings I did while at Blackwell’s Art And Poster shop (amongst other heroes like Eve Arnold, Robert Doisneau to name but two, thanks to our publicity department and almost entirely to photographic historian Martin Harrison who happened to live locally)

Now Elliott was amongst those whose work I discovered as a child through the exhibition catalogue The Family of Man which I think I have mentioned before but I grew up with the genius exhibition book and its work as both my parents and my maternal grandparents owned copies of the catalogue and I now have both of those. 

It was my great privilege to get to meet the three above mentioned photographers as a grown man in my job as manager of the Art Shop and Elliott and I took to each other I like to think. We took him for lunch and there is a photo somewhere of us walking back from the restaurant happy and laughing down Broad Street here in Oxford. He was I think possessed of genius and the eye for an amusement the decisive moment and a twinkle in life’s eye as well as sharing what I might call the ’universal’ in the family of man. Those moments that make us all human and one family

the ‘universal’ from The Family of Man which had a profound effect upon me

the ubiquitous masterpiece which you almost certainly would know and best selling poster

soldier on training excercise

The end is at hand

we are the poorer for his passing