Burt Glinn (1925-2008)

Burt Glinn, one of the first batch of American photographers to join Magnum (associate members with him in 1951 were Eve Arnold and Dennis Stock) died on April 9 of kidney failure and pneumonia, aged 82.

You can see more about him on both Magnum and the Magnum blog. In the 1960s he was also the President of the ASMP and you can read a lengthy interview about his life and work made with him over the phone by the editor of the ASMP bulletin in January 2007.

Glinn was a real hard-working photographer and a fighter for photographer’s rights. He got what was perhaps his best-known picture by arriving “late and out of breath” at the Lincoln Memorial when Kruschev was the first Soviet premier to visit America, and was too late to go up in front of him with the rest of the press – so he shot from behind with a Nikon and a 50mm lens, making just a handful of exposures with the press motioning him to get out of their picture, and was soon moved away by security.

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