Ballycotton, Ireland, Elliott Erwitt

Archive Label 2003:
Elliott Erwitt has the knack of capturing the right moment. He caught Nikita Kruschev and Richard Nixon in the heat of the “Kitchen Debate” (an incident where the two world leaders argued in front of a Westinghouse refrigerator at a Moscow industrial exhibition). And, in this photograph, snapped a small dog seeming to levitate. For many years Erwitt has kept one foot in the photojournalism business and the other in advertising. All the while he has treated photography as a hobby, and for his own enjoyment chronicles everyday life from an eccentric point of view. Erwitt travels incessantly and carries a camera everywhere he goes. A favorite Erwitt subject is dogs and books of his dog photographs have amused readers all over the world. One of photography’s few comic artists, Erwitt often imbues his work with his wry sense of humor, as in this photograph taken in Ireland.