SamShaw
1912 - 1999
Home page: http://www.samshaw.com/
Archive contact: Melissa Stevens (melissa@shawfamilyarchives.net)
Sam Shaw (New Yorker, b. January 15, 1912 - d. April 5, 1999) was born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Shaw is internationally recognized for his photographs of films and movie stars, though his interests and talents covered a wide array of subjects including music, theater, sculpture, painting, literature, journalism, and social and political activism. Shaw's prolific six-decade career is remarkable in its breadth and diversity, and remains a historic record of the twentieth century.
Shortly after graduating high school, Shaw shared a studio with the African American artist, Romare Bearden. They continued to work together throughout their lives and also collaborated on projects with the jazz and literary critic Albert Murray. Many of Shaw's photographs of jazz and blues musicians appear in Bearden's collages.
In the 1940's, Shaw also worked as a courtroom artist, then as a political and sports cartoonist and art director for The Brooklyn Eagle. His career as a photojournalist began with Colliers magazine, which allowed him to travel throughout the United States documenting the lives of coal miners, sharecroppers, burlesque performers, longshoremen, New Orleans' musicians, and other everyday people and circumstances. These soulful photographs comprise Shaw's "Americana" collection; a large body of images depicting American life in the mid-twentieth century. Shaw was also an early contributor to the prestigious photographic agency, Magnum Photos.
By the 1950's, Shaw initiated photo-coverage of films. He captured countless stars of the cinema, including Woody Allen, Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, Warren Beatty, Alfred Hitchcock, Fred Astaire, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Charlie Chaplin, Sean Connery, Jules Dassin, Dennis Hopper, Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, and many more. His photographs appeared often on the cover of Life and Look magazines, as well as in Paris Match, Europeo, The Daily Mail, Der Stern, Harper's Bazaar, and Connaissance des Arts.
Shaw was also known as a master of publicity for many of the films and stars he worked with. In 1951, he photographed Marlon Brando in a ripped t-shirt—a portrait that came to symbolize A Streetcar Named Desire. A few years later, he created the iconic image of Marilyn Monroe with her white skirt blowing over a subway grate in the film The Seven Year Itch. Shaw's "Flying Skirt" picture is one of the most widely seen photographs ever taken.
In the 1960's, Shaw started producing films such as Paris Blues, starring Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier and Louis Armstrong. His good friend, Duke Ellington, wrote the score for the film. He also worked closely with actor-director John Cassavetes, who is widely acknowledged to be the father of American independent cinema. Shaw produced many of Cassavetes' films including Gloria, which won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion, Love Streams, which was awarded the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, and A Woman Under the Influence, which received many awards and was nominated for Best Actress and Best Director at the 1975 Academy Awards. In addition, Shaw produced Cassavetes' Husbands, and Opening Night, and was the production designer for A Killing of a Chinese Bookie.
Cassavetes aptly described Shaw as a "Renaissance Man". However, Shaw's true love always remained photography. Wherever he was Shaw carried multiple cameras around his neck. His photographic archive contains a who's who of classic American and European cinema, as well as musicians, artists, intellectuals, and other well-known individuals, such as Marc Chagall, Arthur Miller, Marcel Duchamp, Igor Stravinsky, Joe Dimaggio, Irving Berlin, Tennessee Williams, and Deborah Harry (Blondie).
Today, Sam Shaw's legacy and work is preserved and promoted by his children and grandchildren.