Exhibit - Joe Rosenthal

 

Joe Rosenthal Photographs

Joe Rosenthal become philosophical about “the picture.” After several hundred interviews and thousands of prints, he has said and seen it all before. His shot of Marines raising a flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima is one of the defining photographs of World War II.

It has been used on war bonds, stamps, and in countless books and articles. Rosenthal, a war correspondent with the Associated Press, shot the photograph as one of 65 on the Iwo Jima campaign. He didn’t see a print of the photograph until days later when he went to Guam, but life has never been the same since. In an interview, Rosenthal reflected on the photograph and how it has affected his life since that time. A modest man, Rosenthal says “hundreds” of photographers “would have done equally well.” “A large part of it is being there,” Rosenthal said, adding with a laugh “the next part is getting the hell out of there.” Rosenthal didn’t see the photograph until days later, when he returned to Guam, but the world saw his photograph – as it was splashed on the front page of newspapers worldwide. His photograph made him famous, with numerous friends and admirers seeking copies of the picture. One of the earliest recipients of a signed copy of the historic photo was longtime friend Anastasia Weil, former owner of the Rancho Buena Vista, who was a community activist. Rosenthal calls Weil an “old, good friend.” “The Weils were like family to me.” They met in the early 1940s, when Rosenthal had his eyes checked by Dr. Walter Weil, one of the best known ophthalmologists in the San Francisco area. Far from discouraging Rosenthal’s work, Walter Weil “pushed me into that sort of thing,” Rosenthal said. The Weils and Rosenthal shared a common interest in art and music, developing a friendship that has last more than 50 years. Rosenthal has visited the Weil household many times since they moved to Vista in 1957. A lively man with a self-deprecating sense of humor, Rosenthal will only admit to being a “fairly good” photographer. “I have had my share of good luck,” Rosenthal said. After shooting for San Francisco newspapers from the time he began his career in the early 1930s, Rosenthal won a job with the Associated Press. Rosenthal is humble about the circumstances that led to the Iwo Jima photograph, pointing to the “opportunity of getting a war assignment.” After spending time in North Africa, shooting pictures of shipping that was vital to the war effort, Rosenthal was reassigned to the Pacific theatre. He covered the war in Guam and then shot the landing at Iwo Jima. Then the fateful day of February 23, 1945, was when he shot a photograph of a contingent of Marines raising a second larger flag atop Mount Suribachi, a volcano at the southern tip of the island. The questions in interviews about the photo are often “repetitious, boring,” Rosenthal said, because he has heard them so often. In particular, Rosenthal has been dogged by a question of whether the photograph was staged. The idea was advanced shortly after the picture was taken, and later disclaimed by Rosenthal and numerous others. But like so many historical myths, it has never died. Rosenthal dismisses it as a “screwball notion.” In numerous interviews since the war, Rosenthal said he was accurately “trying to draw a picture of what was there.” The bigger part of the picture, Rosenthal said, is the sacrifice of the Marines and sailors who died in the war. “Because of what I have seen, I have a lot of respect for the young men who participated in such an important event,” Rosenthal said. “We are still benefiting from that.” The respect is mutual. Rosenthal has been made an honorary member of the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondent Association. His list of honors doesn’t end there. Rosenthal won the Pulitzer Prize for his photograph.

This article was written by Lloyd Starr for the Vista Press newspaper.