Tom Palumbo
1921 - 2008
Home page: www.tompalumbo.com
Archive contact: Patricia Bosworth (patriciabosworth@aol.com) and Astrida Valigorsky (astride@wonderbred.com)
Tom Palumbo (American, b. January 25, 1921 - d. October 13, 2008) was born in Molfetta, Italy; his parents immigrated to New York in 1930. He grew up in Hoboken and, after graduating from high school, took classes at The New School. In 1943 he won a Life Magazine photo contest. This led him into the world of photography. He apprenticed with James Abbe, becoming his assistant in 1946 and learning everything he could about taking photographs, about dark room techniques and lighting. His experience working with Abbe led him to commercial work in fashion photography. In 1950 he went on to be a staff photographer of Harpers Bazaar, where he worked with the great art director Alexi Brodovitch; his colleagues included Richard Avedon and Irving Penn. In 1959 he moved to Vogue and worked with Alex Liberman and Diana Vreeland doing many fashion features and covers; he also worked for Seventeen Magazine, Glamour, Look and Good Housekeeping. He helped create many ad campaigns.
He moved to television in the mid-1960s and became a vice-president of creative productions at Ted Bates, where he produced and directed TV commercials. He always had a great interest in theater and in the 1970s he began directing off-Broadway and became a life-long member of the Actors Studio. (He and Bert Stern were the only photographers ever invited to be in the Studio.) In the 1990s he began teaching photography at Rhode Island School of Design, later he taught directing at The School of Visual Arts. He was a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. His last production was "An Evening of Proust" at Lincoln Center in 1999.
Palumbo's fashion photographs have been exhibited at Staley Wise gallery in Soho and his portrait of Miles Davis is part of the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington.