Gjon Mili

Albanian postage stamp with portrait Milis

Gjon Mili (born November 28, 1904 in Korça , Albania , † February 14, 1984 in Stamford , Connecticut ) was an Albanian-American photographer.

Live and act

Mili came to the United States in 1923. He completed an electrical engineering degree at MIT (graduated in 1927) and worked from 1928 to 1938 as an engineer at Westinghouse Electric (lighting technology) in Cambridge (Massachusetts) . He taught himself photography. From 1939 (until the end of his life) he worked as a freelance photographer, especially for Life Magazine . In the same year he moved to New York. Many of his photos were published in Life, and he had several exhibitions in New York during his lifetime. For magazines, he photographed Pablo Casals in Prades in exile in France , Pablo Picasso in southern France (drawing with light), Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, Jean-Paul Sartre and Edith Piaf in Paris, Ireland and its residents. He also photographed Hollywood stars like Paul Newman (as well as the stills from the film Exodus ), sporting events like Joe Louis boxing matches , concerts, dance, theater, opera and musicals, sculpture and architecture (like in Florence and Venice). In the mid-1940s he was assistant to photographer Edward Weston .

Mili worked with Harold Edgerton from MIT from the 1930s on using very short flash pulses for high-speed photography . Outside of scientific applications, he was a pioneer in the use of stroboscopy and electronic flashlight, e.g. B. of dancers and sports ("stop action" photographs).

In jazz he is known for his short film Jammin 'the Blues (for Warner Brothers, Norman Granz was "Technical Director") from 1944, which he realized with Norman Granz and in which well-known jazz musicians such as Lester Young , Sweets Edison , Illinois Jacquet , Barney Kessel and Jo Jones perform. He himself was not at the camera (but Robert Burks ), but left his trademark in the techniques used (multiple images of the musicians, lighting of the dancers, etc.). Together with Granz he made the music film Improvisation (1950); In 1955 he also filmed Dave Brubeck and his quartet ( Stompin 'for Mili ).

Exhibition rooms of the museum in Mili's birthplace in Korça

Mili published several books with his photographs. A museum in the house where he was born is dedicated to his work and shows 240 of his photographs.

Literature (selection)

Gjon Mili Photographs and Recollections , New York Graphics Society, Boston, 1980, ISBN 0-8212-1116-1
Gjon Mili Homage to Picasso 1967
Gjon Mili The Magic of the Opera 1960

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ RTSH Korça: Gjon Mili, fotografi me famë botërore kthehet në shtëpi on YouTube , December 22, 2018, accessed on July 3, 2019.

personal data
SURNAME	Mili, Gjon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American photographer
DATE OF BIRTH	November 28, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH	Korça , Albania
DATE OF DEATH	February 14, 1984
Place of death	Stamford (Connecticut) , USA

[1] RTSH Korça: Gjon Mili, fotografi me famë botërore kthehet në shtëpi on YouTube , December 22, 2018, accessed on July 3, 2019.