Arnold Newman, 1918-2006

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25 October 2006

Photographer Arnold Newman, known for his portraits of artists and politicians, passed away in early June at the age of 88. Newman, who had been recovering from a stroke, died of a heart attack.

Newman's style was known as environmental portraiture, placing his subjects in the context of their life and work. Among his most famous portraits are those of composer Igor Stravinsky, Andy Warhol, Alfried Krupp, Pablo Picasso, Lyndon B. Johnson and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Among his many honors, Newman was voted one of the world's 10 best photographers in a Popular Photography magazine poll.

After studying art at the University of Miami from 1936 to 1938, Newman moved to Philadelphia, where he apprenticed at a photographic studio, making 49-cent portraits.

In 1939, he returned to Florida, where he managed a West Palm Beach portrait studio before opening his own business in Miami Beach. Ten years later, he relocated his studio to New York and worked as a freelance photographer for Fortune, Life and Newsweek.

In 1992, using pictures from his work of the last 50 years, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington held a show called "Arnold Newman's Americans." For many years, Newman also taught photography at Cooper Union.