May 23rd 1934: Bonnie and Clyde killed
On this day in 1934 the infamous American bank robbing duo Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were ambushed by police and killed in Louisiana. Bonnie and Clyde and their gang were outlaws who robbed banks and killed several police officers and civilians from 1931 to 1934. The couple became legendary for their exploits and their love story, especially after Arthur Penn’s 1967 film ‘Bonnie and Clyde’.
“Some day they’ll go down together;
They’ll bury them side by side;
To few it’ll be grief-
To the law a relief-
But it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde.”
- from Bonnie’s poem about the duo
Alfred Eisentaedt
Manhattan skyline as seen from the roof of the Hotel Bossert, Montague Street, Brooklyn, 1943.
From Life Magazine, Time/Life Pictures/Getty Images
I’ve always been in love with this famous photograph of Julia Stephen (1846–1895), a renowned beauty in her day according to Wikipedia (I can see why) and mother of Virginia Stephen who would later become better known as Virginia Woolf. The photograph was taken by the celebrated Victorian photography pioneer (all the more so since she was a woman) Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879).
This photo has hypnotised me for many years!
Native Americans: Portraits From a Century Ago
In the early 1900s, Seattle-based photographer Edward S. Curtis embarked on a project of epic scale, to travel the western United States and document the lives of Native Americans still untouched by Western society. Curtis secured funding from J.P. Morgan, and visited more than 80 tribes over the next 20 years, taking more than 40,000 photographs, 10,000 wax cylinder recordings, and huge volumes of notes and sketches. The end result was a 20-volume set of books illustrated with nearly 2,000 photographs, titled “The North American Indian.” In the hundred-plus years since the first volume was published, Curtis’s depictions have been both praised and criticized. The sheer documentary value of such a huge and thorough project has been celebrated, while critics of the photography have objected to a perpetuation of the myth of the “noble savage” in stage-managed portraits. Step back now, into the early 20th century, and let Edward Curtis show you just a few of the thousands of faces he viewed through his lens.
See more. [Images: Library of Congress/Edward S. Curtis]
