Eliot Elisofon:

An Inventory of His Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center [Part 1]

Biographical Sketch

Photographer, artist, art collector, author, and filmmaker Eliot Elisofon was born Meyer Eliot Elicofon, the son of immigrants Sarah and Samuel Elicofon, in New York City on April 17, 1911. As a teenager, he became interested in both photography and painting. Elisofon graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1929, and at that time he dropped his first name and changed the spelling of his surname. For the next few years he worked at the New York State Workmen's Compensation Bureau while attending Fordham University at night, ultimately receiving a B.S. in 1933. Meanwhile, he continued to pursue his interest in photography, and in 1935 Elisofon, Marty Bauman, and Al Weiner opened a commercial photography studio, August and Company. As a commercial photographer, Elisofon expanded from product advertising photoraphs to fashion photography assignments for magazines such as Mademoiselle and Vogue. He was a member of the Photo League, serving as its president for a time, and he developed a strong interest in photography as social documentary. Elisofon's photographs documenting New York street scenes were exhibited in 1937 at the Pennsylvania Museum of Art in Philadelphia and at the Julian Levy Gallery in New York. In 1938, his work was exhibited at the East River Gallery and at the New School for Social Research, where he worked as an instructor. After showing his portfolio to LIFE magazine in 1937, Elisofon began receiving assignments from that magazine and others and decided to devote his career to photojournalism. He left the studio in 1938 to work as a freelance magazine photographer, producing mainly travel and glamour photographs which were published in such magazines as Fortune and Scribner's, as well as Mademoiselle, Vogue, and Glamour. For LIFE, he also produced photographic essays on a variety of subjects, ranging from military exercises to refugees to coal miners, from actresses and plays to social clubs. Elisofon also worked as a staff photographer for the Museum of Modern Art in 1939 and became skilled at photographing works of art.

Elisofon joined the LIFE staff in 1942 as a war photographer-correspondent, and during the remainder of World War II he traveled to the North African front, to Sweden and Finland, and to Hawaii and Wake Island. In the post-war years, he began working on geographical photo essays in the United States and around the world. He eventually developed a special interest in Africa and became a collector of African art and an expert in that area. As a member of the Peabody Museum of Salem's 1956 expedition to the South Pacific, led by William A. Robinson, Elisofon photographed the voyage and collected artifacts from the South Sea Islands as the expedition traced the Polynesian migration route. He was appointed a Research Fellow in Primitive Art at Harvard University in 1958, and he was a member of the Harvard Peabody Museum's 1961 expedition to film tribal life in New Guinea. Elisofon remained a staff photographer for LIFE from 1942 to 1964 and then, although he also pursued freelance and commercial work, he continued to work for LIFE on a contract basis until the magazine suspended publication at the end of 1972. During those three decades, Elisofon traveled more than a million miles on six continents, covering assignments on places, art, architecture, celebrities, food, and social subjects. He continued to do freelance work for Smithsonian Magazine, National Geographic, Horizon, and other magazines until his death in 1973.

Elisofon was known for his experiments with color control, and he worked as a color consultant on the films Moulin Rouge, Bell, Book and Candle, and The Greatest Story Ever Told, among others. In 1965, he directed the prologue of the film Khartoum and a portion of Man Builds for National Educational Television. Elisofon was director of creative production for the ABC documentary Africa in 1967, and in 1972 he wrote, produced, and directed a four-hour television series for Group W (Westinghouse Broadcasting Company) titled Black African Heritage.

Besides collecting primitive art and sculpture, other interests Elisofon pursued were cooking and painting, and he was able to take advantage of his worldwide travel as a photographer to develop all of these simultaneously. His photographs, watercolor paintings, and objects from his personal collection of primitive art have been exhibited throughout the United States and other countries.

Elisofon frequently lectured on a variety of subjects at museums, colleges, and clubs around the country; topics included photography, African art, and his travels. He also wrote numerous articles and essays as well as several books, including the cookbook Food Is a Four-Letter Word (1948); The Sculpture of Africa (1958); Color Photography (1961); The Nile (1964); Java Diary (1969); and Erotic Spirituality (1971). He wrote and illustrated three of a series of Crowell-Collier's children's books showing a week in the lives of children in other countries. Elisofon contributed photographs to Joseph Campbell's edition of Heinrich Zimmer's The Art of Indian Asia (1955) and Arthur Knight's The Hollywood Style (1969), among others, and he also provided illustrations for publications by Time-Life Books, including a "Foods of the World" cookbook series.

Elisofon was married twice, first to Mavis Lyons (married July 1, 1941, divorced 1946) and later to Joan Spear (married July 15, 1950, divorced 1965), with whom he had two daughters, Elin (b. 1952) and Jill (b. 1953). Throughout his life, Elisofon maintained a primary residence in New York City and a secondary one on the island of Vinalhaven, Maine. Elisofon died in New York City on April 7, 1973, as a result of a massive cerebral hemorrhage.

Elisofon was a founding trustee of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African Art in 1964 and at the time of his death was a curatorial associate. He bequeathed to that museum not only his collection of African art, but also his photographs, transparencies, and film footage of Africa and its art. Before his death Elisofon had also donated pieces of his African and Pacific art collection to that museum, the Museum of Primitive Art in New York, the Peabody Museum of Salem, Massachusetts, and to many other institutions.

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Scope and Contents

Eliot Elisofon's career as a photojournalist, filmmaker, author, artist, and collector of primitive art and sculpture is documented by photographs, transparencies, slides, negatives, films, research material, notes, photo captions, logbooks, correspondence, agreements and other documents, drafts, proofs, tearsheets, clippings, scrapbooks, catalogs, sketchbooks, and artifacts, all dating from 1933 to 1988. The archive is organized in ten series: I. Photography Files, 1933-1973, nd; II. Film and Television Projects, 1953-1973, 1986; III. Writings and Lectures, 1938-1973; IV. Artwork, 1935-1969; V. Exhibitions, 1936-1986; VI. Private Art Collection, 1939-1969, nd; VII. Food Files, 1943-1969, nd; VIII. Correspondence, 1930-1973, nd; IX. About Elisofon, 1930-1985; and X. Elin Elisofon, 1976-1988, nd. Within each series material is arranged primarily in chronological order. For preservation reasons, photographic materials have been physically separated into three sets of boxes according to format--color transparencies and color prints, black and white prints and paper material, or black and white negatives. However, the folder list keeps this material together intellectually.

Elisofon's photography files, the first and largest series, are arranged by the date the photographs were originally taken, as much as can be determined, and not by the date they were published, since the images may have been published much later, in multiple publications, or not at all. Elisofon primarily is remembered as a photographer for LIFE magazine, as his relationship with that magazine spanned 35 years, and the collection reflects that dominance; the majority of the photographs were taken for that magazine or for Time-Life Books. Other photographs include those taken for personal reasons, for other books and publications, or for commercial assignments.

Other series relate to Elisofon's film and television projects, his writings and lectures, artwork, exhibitions, art collection, food files, correspondence, various materials about Elisofon, and to his daughter Elin's work on a book and exhibition. Materials relating to films for which Elisofon served as a still photographer only are housed with the photography files, but materials for films for which he served in other technical capacities are located in the film series. Elisofon was a published author, and he also served as a visiting lecturer or instructor at numerous universities, museums, and clubs. Materials relating to those writings and lectures form two subseries within the Writings and Lectures series. In addition, Elisofon was an artist, noted for his watercolors of nudes and flowers; his sketchbooks, as well as photographs of some of his paintings, may be found in the archive (Series IV). Materials relating to exhibitions of Elisofon's paintings are combined with items relating to exhibitions of his photographs and objects from his collection of primitive art in a single series (Series V). Other manuscripts and photographs, including records of sales and donations, relating to Elisofon's private art collection are located within their own series (Series VI). Elisofon's culinary interest is reflected throughout the collection, and recipes are located in his logbooks as well as in the Food Files series. Wherever possible, materials have been maintained in their original order, so that correspondence located with particular files remains in those files, while other, similar, correspondence may be found in the Correspondence series. All correspondents in the papers are listed in the Index of Correspondents.

Material about Elisofon is divided into four subseries. Transcripts and clippings of interviews, published articles, and essays about Elisofon form the first subseries. Scrapbooks, primarily containing early tearsheets and clippings about Elisofon, form the second subseries. Elisofon's personal files of medical papers, financial and legal documents, address books, and the like make up the third subseries. A fourth subseries comprises personal photographs, mainly of Elisofon. Elin Elisofon's files from her work on a biography and exhibition on her father (Series IX) conclude the collection.

Because Elisofon's daughter Elin began sorting and organizing the material before it was acquired by the Ransom Center, she is very much a part of the archive. Besides providing much of the arrangement and many titles, she produced her own notes and correspondence; these are scattered throughout the collection, although the bulk of her work files are located in the final series. Eliot's and Elin's folder titles are indicated in the folder list by single quotation marks; these titles are usually the same as the story assignment title given by LIFE magazine.

Films, a videotape, and three empty film and negative containers have been removed from the archive and are housed separately in the Ransom Center. Books and periodicals, including some issues of LIFE, have been cataloged separately with the Center's book holdings. Those items are listed as Associated Materials at the end of this finding aid. Other lists include Elisofon's cover photographs, published photographs of Elisofon, and prints and negatives of Elisofon, his wives, and his daughers.

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Restrictions

Access

Open for research

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Related Material

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Separated Material

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Administrative Information

Acquisition

Gift, 1992

Processed by

Katherine Mosley, 1999

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Series Descriptions

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Eliot Elisofon Papers--Folder List