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<blockquote>One of the first assignments Hayes gave me was a series of portraits of Southern segregationists. He said, 'Look, we don't want to be seen as editorializing. We want to be fair and we want to give their point of view, so don't use your goddamn wide-angle lens.' He thought that lens would make them look bad, so while I didn't use it, I did make some little changes that I think made [the segregationists] look as ugly as we all thought they were.</blockquote>
<blockquote>One of the first assignments Hayes gave me was a series of portraits of Southern segregationists. He said, 'Look, we don't want to be seen as editorializing. We want to be fair and we want to give their point of view, so don't use your goddamn wide-angle lens.' He thought that lens would make them look bad, so while I didn't use it, I did make some little changes that I think made [the segregationists] look as ugly as we all thought they were.</blockquote>


Among his other subjects were movie stars, artists and athletes, but the covers were often politically charged, and included war criminal [[William Calley]] surrounded by Vietnamese children,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Barnett |first=Louise |title=Atrocity and American Military Justice in Southeast Asia: Trial by Army. |publisher=Routledge |year=2010 |isbn=9781135172367 |edition=ebook |pages=206 |language=en}}</ref> or during the peak of the [[civil rights movement]], [[Sonny Liston]] as an angry black [[Santa Claus]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Raiford |first=Leigh |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/701719774 |title=Imprisoned in a luminous glare : photography and the African American freedom struggle |date=2011 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-0-8078-8233-7 |location=Chapel Hill |pages=142, 174, 175 |oclc=701719774}}</ref>
Among his other subjects were movie stars, artists and athletes,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bonanos |first=Christopher |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/975085848 |title=Highbrow, lowbrow, brilliant, despicable : 50 years of New York |date=2017 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |others=Chris Cristiano, Aaron Garza, Randy Minor |isbn=1-5011-6684-0 |edition=hardcover |location=New York |pages=267 |oclc=975085848}}</ref> but the covers were often politically charged, and included war criminal [[William Calley]] surrounded by Vietnamese children,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Barnett |first=Louise |title=Atrocity and American Military Justice in Southeast Asia: Trial by Army. |publisher=Routledge |year=2010 |isbn=9781135172367 |edition=ebook |pages=206 |language=en}}</ref> or during the peak of the [[civil rights movement]], [[Sonny Liston]] as an angry black [[Santa Claus]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Raiford |first=Leigh |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/701719774 |title=Imprisoned in a luminous glare : photography and the African American freedom struggle |date=2011 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-0-8078-8233-7 |location=Chapel Hill |pages=142, 174, 175 |oclc=701719774}}</ref>


After collaborating through the 1960s he and Lois, disputing who should be credited with the covers, including some falsely claimed by Lois, such as the one of [[St. Patrick's Cathedral (New York)|St. Patrick's Cathedral]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=SlamXhype |url=http://slamxhype.com/blogs/great-magazine-covers-1-sonny-liston-esquire/}}</ref> went their separate ways in the early 1970s.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Lois |first=George |title=George Lois on His Creation of the Big Idea.. |publisher=Editions Assouline |year=2008}}</ref> After Hayes left ''Esquire'' in 1973, Fischer gradually ceased working for the magazine but continued in advertising photography.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The 56th Art Directors Club annual of advertising, editorial and television art and design |publisher=Watson-Guptill Publications |year=1977 |isbn=9780823019090 |location=New York, N.Y |pages=132}}</ref> He directed television commercials and taught as an adjunct professor at the [[Rochester Institute of Technology]]. A member of the [[Directors Guild of America]], he also served as President of the [[Art Directors Club of New York|Art Directors Club]].
After collaborating through the 1960s he and Lois, disputing who should be credited with the covers, including some falsely claimed by Lois, such as the one of [[St. Patrick's Cathedral (New York)|St. Patrick's Cathedral]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=SlamXhype |url=http://slamxhype.com/blogs/great-magazine-covers-1-sonny-liston-esquire/}}</ref> went their separate ways in the early 1970s.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Lois |first=George |title=George Lois on His Creation of the Big Idea.. |publisher=Editions Assouline |year=2008}}</ref> After Hayes left ''Esquire'' in 1973, Fischer gradually ceased working for the magazine but continued in advertising photography.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The 56th Art Directors Club annual of advertising, editorial and television art and design |publisher=Watson-Guptill Publications |year=1977 |isbn=9780823019090 |location=New York, N.Y |pages=132}}</ref> Prior to the advent of digital imaging, much of his photographic illustration and advertising work required complex montage and retouching.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280833989 |title=68th Art Directors annual and third international exhibition |date=1989 |publisher=Roto Vision for the Art Directors Club |others=Art Directors Club |isbn=9782880461027 |location=Mies, Switzerland |pages=320 |oclc=1280833989}}</ref> He directed television commercials and taught as an adjunct professor at the [[Rochester Institute of Technology]]. A member of the [[Directors Guild of America]], he also served as President of the [[Art Directors Club of New York|Art Directors Club]].


Fischer died on April 7, 2023 aged 98.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Genzlinger |first=Neil |date=2023-04-11 |title=Carl Fischer, Who Shot Attention-Getting Esquire Covers, Dies at 98 |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/11/arts/carl-fischer-dead.html |access-date=2023-04-18 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
Fischer died on April 7, 2023 aged 98.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Genzlinger |first=Neil |date=2023-04-11 |title=Carl Fischer, Who Shot Attention-Getting Esquire Covers, Dies at 98 |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/11/arts/carl-fischer-dead.html |access-date=2023-04-18 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

Revision as of 00:40, 19 April 2023

Carl Fischer (1924–2023) was an American art director and autodidact magazine photographer. HIs work is held in a number of international museums.[1]

Early life

Carl Fischer was born in 1924 and raised in Brooklyn.[2] Fischer took painting at Cooper Union but majored in graphic design. He graduated in 1948 with the Augustus St. Gaudens Medal.[3] He worked as an art director for six years before. Receiving a Fulbright Scholarship, he went to England where he studied book design and typography at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, and used their darkroom to teach himself photography from library books.[4]

Esquire

He began his career as an advertising agency art director in New York working with Paul Rand and Herb Lubalin then began photographing for Esquire magazine when Harold Hayes became its editor in chief in 1963 and was commissioned throughout the 1960s and early 1970s for picture stories. Working with the magazine's creative consultant George Lois they devised what became amongst the most famous and provocative Esquire covers of the 1960s decade; Muhammad Ali as a martyred St Sebastian[5] and Andy Warhol drowning in a giant can of tomato soup.[6][7] By 1968 all of the covers for that year featured his photographs. His studio was a townhouse on East Eighty-third Street, New York City, where he lived.[8][2]

In 1990 Steven Heller, senior art director of The New York Times, when asked what icons of American graphic design were worth preserving, declared; "George Lois's Esquire covers from the mid-196os to the very early '70s are. Most were collaborations with photographer Carl Fischer that took an average of three days to produce; they are considered among the most powerful propaganda imagery in any medium and certainlv the most memorable mapazine covers ever."[9]

Interviewed by the magazine in 2015 he recalled;

One of the first assignments Hayes gave me was a series of portraits of Southern segregationists. He said, 'Look, we don't want to be seen as editorializing. We want to be fair and we want to give their point of view, so don't use your goddamn wide-angle lens.' He thought that lens would make them look bad, so while I didn't use it, I did make some little changes that I think made [the segregationists] look as ugly as we all thought they were.

Among his other subjects were movie stars, artists and athletes,[10] but the covers were often politically charged, and included war criminal William Calley surrounded by Vietnamese children,[11] or during the peak of the civil rights movement, Sonny Liston as an angry black Santa Claus.[12]

After collaborating through the 1960s he and Lois, disputing who should be credited with the covers, including some falsely claimed by Lois, such as the one of St. Patrick's Cathedral,[13] went their separate ways in the early 1970s.[6] After Hayes left Esquire in 1973, Fischer gradually ceased working for the magazine but continued in advertising photography.[14] Prior to the advent of digital imaging, much of his photographic illustration and advertising work required complex montage and retouching.[15] He directed television commercials and taught as an adjunct professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. A member of the Directors Guild of America, he also served as President of the Art Directors Club.

Fischer died on April 7, 2023 aged 98.[16]

Awards

  • Mark Twain Journalism Award
  • Cleo Award
  • Art Directors Club gold and silver medals
  • Augustus St. Gaudens Medal[3]

Collections

References

  1. ^ a b c Golya, Alexander (2022-12-19). "Carl Fischer". CAMERA WORK. Retrieved 2023-04-18.
  2. ^ a b Browne, Turner (1983). Macmillan biographical encyclopedia of photographic artists & innovators. Elaine Partnow. New York: Macmillan. p. 194. ISBN 0-02-517500-9. OCLC 8552746.
  3. ^ a b "Augustus Saint-Gaudens Award Winners". Cooper Union Alumni Association. 2014-12-17. Retrieved 2023-04-18.
  4. ^ Belth, Alex (14 April 2023). "How Carl Fischer Helped Define the Esquire Look: The legendary photographer is most famous for his iconic covers, but the breadth of his work goes much deeper". Esquire.
  5. ^ Castelli, Elizabeth A. (2006). "The Ambivalent Legacy of Violence and Victimhood: Using Early Christian Martyrs to Think With". Spiritus. 6. The Johns Hopkins University Press: 1–24.
  6. ^ a b Lois, George (2008). George Lois on His Creation of the Big Idea. Editions Assouline.
  7. ^ Warhol, Andy (2022). The Andy Warhol diaries. Pat Hackett (First Twelve trade paperback ed.). New York. ISBN 978-1-5387-3918-1. OCLC 1319743058.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. ^ "Carl Fischer". Esquire. 164 (3): 108. October 2015.
  9. ^ Polsgrove, Carol (2001). It wasn't pretty, folks, but didn't we have fun? : surviving the '60s with Esquire's Harold Hayes. Oakland, Calif.: RDR Books. p. 269. ISBN 1-57143-091-1. OCLC 48461270.
  10. ^ Bonanos, Christopher (2017). Highbrow, lowbrow, brilliant, despicable : 50 years of New York. Chris Cristiano, Aaron Garza, Randy Minor (hardcover ed.). New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 267. ISBN 1-5011-6684-0. OCLC 975085848.
  11. ^ Barnett, Louise (2010). Atrocity and American Military Justice in Southeast Asia: Trial by Army (ebook ed.). Routledge. p. 206. ISBN 9781135172367.
  12. ^ Raiford, Leigh (2011). Imprisoned in a luminous glare : photography and the African American freedom struggle. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. pp. 142, 174, 175. ISBN 978-0-8078-8233-7. OCLC 701719774.
  13. ^ "SlamXhype".
  14. ^ The 56th Art Directors Club annual of advertising, editorial and television art and design. New York, N.Y: Watson-Guptill Publications. 1977. p. 132. ISBN 9780823019090.
  15. ^ 68th Art Directors annual and third international exhibition. Art Directors Club. Mies, Switzerland: Roto Vision for the Art Directors Club. 1989. p. 320. ISBN 9782880461027. OCLC 1280833989.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  16. ^ Genzlinger, Neil (2023-04-11). "Carl Fischer, Who Shot Attention-Getting Esquire Covers, Dies at 98". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-04-18.
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