George Lacks: A Remembrance in Pictures

December 21, 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of George M. Lacks. George Lacks was a photojournalist who worked as a correspondent for Life magazine in the 1930s and '40s. He toured extensively in Europe, Japan, and China, often shuttling back and forth from the United States. During this time he photographed numerous dignitaries from around the world, from Chiang Kai-shek, Gen. George C. Marshall, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur, to Richard M. Nixon and Howard Hughes (pictured here, at bottom right), to name just a few. In 1937 he captured a suite of images of Adolf Hitler at the latter's summer retreat in the Berchtesgadener Alpen—not an easy task, to say the least, for a man born into an Orthodox Jewish family. He photographed such actors as Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, and Danny Kaye while they filmed in Hollywood studios. However, as a photographer he also favored "the salt of the earth," the grittiness of common people often situated in most uncommon circumstances. The photo of the Chinese opium smoker at left is one of many examples that convey a startling immediacy and intimacy.

I'm proud to say that George Lacks was also my father.

I never got to know my father as well as I would have liked. That's because, at the age of 49, he was felled by a massive heart attack just three weeks shy of my tenth birthday. Thus the year 2010 also marks the 50th anniversary of his death, on June 26. (Coincidentally, 2010 marks my 60th birthday as well.) This webpage will eventually become a portal to another website, one with its own look and feel, that will commemorate the photographic works of my father. It will sample two extensive online collections of his work, one on Google Images (containing 200 photos), and the other on Getty Images (a massive collection of 685 photos). Beyond that, it will contain images not presented in either of these collections, including the complete Adolf Hitler suite, and a handful of compelling personal images of family and friends. I trust that you will find these images to be as arresting as I do. Look for this website to be completed on or before October 1, 2010. In the meantime, you can click on these links to view the online collections: George Lacks on Google Images, and George Lacks on Getty Images.