From US to Italy to US
Tony Vaccaro has photographed kings and queens, presidents and popes, writers and actors, artists and scientists during his almost 80-year career. He was the second of their three children and the only boy. His father Giuseppe Antonio Vaccaro was from Bonefro in the Molise region of Italy. In 1926, in the course of the family relocating back to Italy, both his parents died, so he was raised by relatives in Italy.
With the outbreak of World War II, Vaccaro moved back to the United States in order to escape military service in Italy. He graduated from Isaac E. Young High School in New Rochelle, New York, in 1943, and was drafted a few months later into the U.S. Army. He sought an assignment as a photographer with the Army Signal Corps offering photographs taken in high school as evidence of his talent. He was rejected because of his age.
Post-War Europe
Instead, Vaccaro was sent to Europe as a private in the 83rd Infantry Division of the U.S. Army. He fought in Normandy, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany. His usual position as a scout provided him with the opportunity to take photographs with a $47.50 Argus C3 compact 35mm rangefinder camera that he was adept at using. Probably using a 35mm camera gave him a great advantage over the official Army photographers who were forced to lug 30 pound military 4×5 cameras and shoot from the sidelines. But Vaccaro was able to bring his little Argus to the heart of the battlefield, and record the true war. Not getting to be an official Army photographer ended up being a blessing. (he still has a bunch of Argus C3’s,…little tanks) In September 1945, he was discharged from the army. Vaccaro stayed in Germany, where he obtained a job first as a photographer for Audio Visual Aids (AVA) 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.
Working and Teaching
After his return to the U.S. in 1949, he worked for Flair and Look before joining the magazine Life. Between 1950 and 1973 Vaccaro worked extensively as a celebrity and fashion photographer. He settled in the West Village in 1951 and then on Central Park West in 1955. (I would do anything to turn back time and experience NYC in the 50’s and 60’s 😢) From 1970 to 1980 he taught photography at Cooper Union. In 1979 he moved both his residence and studio along with his archive of hundreds of thousands of images, to Long Island City. He continued to spend his summers in Rome. In 1963 he met and married Anja Kyllikki, a Finnish model. They had two sons and eventually separated in 1979.
His portrait and fashion clientele included Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Sophia Loren, Georgia O’Keefe, Jackson Pollock. 70 years of photography have led him down many roads. Even assisting Irving Penn and meeting Victor Hasselblad. (while using his Hasselblad) He was the consummate “photographer”. He’s done war/photojournalism, fashion, celebrity, art, street,…all while developing and printing his work. I doubt Tony Vaccaro was ever bored.
Enough of War
While war photography is what he is most known for, it wasn’t of his choosing. “We’re humans. We better learn that fast.” says Vaccaro. “Photography can show that we all look alike. Beautiful pictures. That’s what we should do. Beautiful pictures [and] make the world better. Of course, there was no other choice for taking pictures other than film at that time, but I still shoot film today because I know it,… I understand it. Film gives me my look and I am very grateful for it. These days I use ISO 400 color film in my Leica M3, and ISO 200 black and white film in my Hasselblad.“
Although some 4,000 of his photographs were lost in an accident in 1947, photographs from his extensive wartime archive were published in 2001 in his book, “Entering Germany: Photographs 1944-1949” and 2002 in the book “Shots of War”. In 1994, he was awarded the French Légion d’Honneur at the celebrations marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Normandy landings.
Tony Vaccaro has won several honors and awards. These include the Art Director’s Gold Medal (New York City, 1963), The World Press Photo Gold Medal (The Hague, 1969), The Legion of Honor (Paris, 1994), The Medal of Honor (Luxembourg, 2002), Das Verdienstkreuz (Berlin, 2004), and the Minerva d’Oro (Pescara, 2014). Since retiring in 1982, Tony Vaccaro has been exhibited over 250 times and has published or been the subject of ten books and two major films including HBO’s release of “Underfire” in 2016. Today, Tony Vaccaro’s works are in numerous private and public collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. While he may be approaching 100, he’s probably the most sprightly centarian you’ll ever meet. My personal opinion,…art keeps you young. Tony Vaccaro has had a spectacular near century of images. And now an actual museum was named after Tony Vaccaro in Bonefro, Italy on August 24, 2014. Maybe something we should all try to attain in our finite photographic lives. 🤔