The twentieth century is now history, but the people and events documented by photographers will remain with us for some time.
No one is better qualified to discuss this than George Gilbert, a colorful Brooklyn-born documentary photographer and raconteur who served as a cartographer in World War II, covered the streets of New York City with his Leica and Speed Graphic, wrote for magazines and published 22 books, taught photographic history at the University of Connecticut, and spent years in the advertising field.
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(Photo - Robert Lansdale)
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George Gilbert was intimately familiar with key figures, celebrities and events during this time, and will share his stories about :
- the socially and politically active New York Photo League and its importance to mid-20th century American documentary photography (MORE ...)
- aerial mapping of the South Pacific Islands during World War II (there were no mountain maps guiding our pilots flying at night)
- documenting the mountain town of Rifle, Colorado where uranium was discovered (a front page story in the New York Times)
- how he persuaded the Asahi Optical Company to adopt the name 'Pentax' for their first camera, after closing an unprecedented deal between Asahi and the German owners of that name
- and ... his 'opening of the curtain' revealing half-clad backstage Broadway showgirls in a sleazy Mafia-owned nightclub
George became the founding president of the American Photographic Historical Society in 1970. In 1987 the story behind the Protestant Leitz family's courageous plan to enable 300 Jewish families, some disguised as Leitz sales employees (carrying Leica cameras), to escape from pre-war Nazi Germany first became public. George was later instrumental in getting the society to sponsor publication of this dramatic saga of heroism in a small book entitled 'The 'Leica Freedom Train' (2002).
Please join us for an enlightening and entertaining evening with one of America's best raconteurs and widely published twentieth century photographers.
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