Louis Fabian Bachrach, Jr.

Louis Fabian Bachrach, Jr. (born April 9, 1917 in Newton , Massachusetts , USA ; † February 26, 2010 there ) was an American photographer .

biography

Bachrach came from a family of commercial portrait photographers who have been running the business in the fourth generation since 1870. In some cases, Bachrach Photography is regarded as the oldest still existing photo studio in the world and has photographed not only personalities from art , sports , business and politics, but also almost every US president since Abraham Lincoln .

His grandfather David Bachrach Jr. took photographs as a young photographer Abraham Lincoln in Gettysburg as early as 1863 and opened the first Bachrach photo studio in Baltimore in 1868 . His Louis Fabian Bachrach, who was also a successful photographer, expanded the small photo studio into a national company that, at the height of its success in 1929, had a total of 48 photo studios across the United States.

After attending school, Fabian Bachrach studied history at Harvard University and graduated in 1939 with a Bachelor of Arts (BAHist.). At the age of seventy, he completed postgraduate studies in Italian literature at Boston College , which he completed in 1988 with a Master of Arts (MA). During World War II he served in the United States Navy as a navigator in the Pacific War . He then joined the family business like his older brother Bradford Bachrach.

In the 1950s , he introduced color photography at Bachrach Studios, which has become the company's standard since the 1970s .

Fabian Bachrach was best known for his portrait photo of the young US Senator from Massachusetts , John F. Kennedy , which became the official presidential photo after his election as US President and ultimately an omnipresent memory of the President after the assassination attempt on Kennedy.

Louis Bachrach remembered the portrait of Kennedy after the death of his father, because it almost never came about. When Kennedy was a US Senator in 1959, he sat for Fabian Bachrach's portrait. When the negative films were developed, none turned out to be usable because the images were blurred or Kennedy, who suffered from chronic back pain, was shown in awkward positions, which, according to his son, consumed Fabian Bachrach for "many, many, many months."

He immediately reported this to Kennedy's office and formally begged for a new meeting, which he attended in Washington, DC in the summer of 1960 . Kennedy was at a session of the US Senate until late at night, and Bachrach was already packing up when Kennedy showed up.

So there was only time for six photographs . One of them, a black and white photo , showed Kennedy from the chest, looking directly into the camera . This became the presidential portrait, which was later reproduced thousands of times. Another color photograph of Kennedy seated in a leather armchair with the United States flag behind him also became widespread. The session lasted only ten minutes from start to finish, as Fabian Bacharach recalled to the New York Times in 1961 :

"I had to work fast. He doesn't sit still very long. "(" I had to work very quickly. He didn't sit still very long. ")

In the course of time, Fabian Bachrach also photographed Richard M. Nixon , Jawaharlal Nehru , Indira Gandhi , Joe DiMaggio , Muhammad Ali , Jacques Cousteau , Robert Frost , Buckminster Fuller and Richard Avedon in addition to Kennedy . He also photographed the Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier before his fall in 1986. Bachrach's son, Louis Bachrach, remembered this work as follows:

"We photographed Baby Doc, and he placed this enormous order - all these big portraits. The day he was deposed, there was this angry crowd in front of the presidential palace, burning the Bachrach portrait. ”(“ We photographed Baby Doc, and he placed the whole order - all these huge portraits. The day he fell, there was because this angry crowd in front of the presidential palace, who burned the Bachrach portrait. ")

The family business still operates photo studios in Boston , New York , Philadelphia and Alexandria (Virginia) .

Web links

• NEW YORK TIMES: "Fabian Bachrach, 92, Portraitist Who Photographed Kennedy, Dies" (March 1, 2010)