May 31, 1972: An exhibition of news photos by nine young prizewinning news photographers, three killed and six missing in action, opens at The Brooklyn Museum on Wednesday, June 7. Originally conceived by 25-year-old, Capa Award-winning LIFE photographer John Olson, VIET NAM: A PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY was assembled by the Gallery Association of New York State, Inc., which is funded by the New York State Council on the Arts.
The 68 photographs, in color and black and white, graphically depict the brutal face of war. Mounted without captions and numbered for identification purposes only, the pictures speak for themselves. A dazed child clings to the stretcher on which her mother lies, wounds wrapped in rags; impassive soldiers regard a captured enemy, hung by the ankles from the limb of a tree; a Black soldier, head bound in a bloody bandage, reaches out his arms to a dead or dying buddy, sprawled in the mud, arms outflung like a fallen Christ; two Vietnamese mothers and their children crouch in water up to their necks, their faces tense masks of anguish and fear; soldiers huddle in a trench, hands cupped over their ears, bodies hunched protectively.
VIET NAM: A PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY is selected from the work of HIROMICHI MINE (UPI) Killed in Action; DANA STONE (UPI/AP/CBS) Missing in Action; HENRI HUET (AP) Missing in Action; LARRY BURROWS (LIFE Magazine) Missing in Action; CHARLES EGGLESTON (UPI) Missing in Action; KENT POTTER (UPI) Missing in Action; SEAN FLYNN (UPI/TIME-LIFE) Missing in Action; KYIOCHI SAWADA (UPI) Killed in Action; ROBERT ELLISON (Freelance) Killed in Action. Most of these photographers were under 25 years of age.
A catalogue containing selected photographs from the exhibition is available for $2.00.
Upon closing at The Brooklyn Museum, VIET NAM: A PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY will embark on an 18-month tour of universities and galleries throughout New York State.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1971 - 1988. 1972, 046-47.
