Larry Burrows - war and peace

When the helicopter carrying Larry Burrows was lost over Laos on February 10, 1971 the Burrows family lost a husband and father, and the world lost perhaps the most poetic visual chronicler of the war in Vietnam. Yet before he became so involved with the American involvement in Southeast Asia , Burrows had proven himself as an enormously accomplished photographer, making portraits ranging from Tibetan children to candid shots of Winston Churchill. On exhibit at Laurence Miller Gallery, from March 10 through April 30, 2005, will be a selection of Burrows’ work that shows a tremendous range, from a photographer of princes, politicians and monuments to generals, soldiers and combat.

Among the featured works will be 8 images from One Ride with Yankee Papa 13, one of the most stirring photo-essays ever made. A story on James Farley and Yankee Papa 13 had been commissioned both to personalize the growing US involvement in Vietnam and to inform the US public. The essay that ran in Life told the intended story, but focused on the events of one day, March 31, 1965. The intense and poignant events of this one day by some measures herald the beginning of the war, and by many measures capture the essence of what was to become a 10-year ordeal. From the opening shot, in which a young and confident James Farley is introduced before an attempted rescue mission, to bloody footage of the ensuing barrage of gunfire, to the final return to base, the essay captures the universal humanity of man embroiled in the inhumanity of war.

Larry Burrows photographs are widely published, most notably in two extraordinary books, Larry Burrows Compassionate Photographer by the Editors of Life, and more recently Larry Burrows Vietnam, which won the 2002 Prix Nadar as the Best Photography book of the year. Pressetext

Larry Burrows - war and peace