This is a review. The author is responsible for the opinions in the text.
Exhibition
“Through the playful eyes of Elliott Erwitt”
Photographic Stockholm. Shown until May 17th
The American Elliott Erwitt is one of the legends of photography history with assignments all over the world. He was often present at historic events, such as John F. Kennedy’s funeral in 1963 and when Nixon gave a lecture to Khrushchev in Moscow in 1959. He portrayed political figures such as Fidel Castro and Che Guevara as well as Hollywood stars such as Alfred Hitchcock and Marilyn Monroe.
“Through the playful eyes of Elliott Erwitt” at Fotografiska in Stockholm is a retrospective exhibition with around 100 images from seven decades. Iconic photographs from mission trips are mixed here with promotional images and private photos, both with family members and from leisure moments. Mainly in black and white, which he preferred, but rarely showing color photographs.
Elliott Erwitt (1928–2023) was born in Paris, grew up in Milan and emigrated to the USA in 1939 with his Russian-Jewish parents. He began taking photographs as a teenager and in 1953 became a member of the long-established photo agency Magnum Photos, which he also managed for several years. Erwitt had time to select images for the Fotografiska exhibition in Shanghai 2024, on which this one in Stockholm is based.
The first eye-catcher is a photo mural with a fantastic image of a Chihuahua in a knitted suit staring anxiously next to bootlegs. It took me a while to figure out that the small, lively dog was accompanied by a huge Ditto. Probably a Great Dane who is on the other side of math. One of many examples of Erwitt’s attentive gaze, alongside unusual and sometimes uncomfortable perspective choices – here he seems to have been lying on the wet ground.
The images are grouped into series such as Cities, Between Genders, Children, On the Beach, Personalities and Dogs – the latter theme being shown as a slideshow. I think that’s a shame, especially since dogs (and children) were among Erwitt’s personal favorite subjects. In a wall text quoting from the 1988 book Personal Exposes, he says that one of his first dog-related assignments was a fashion job on women’s shoes: “I decided to photograph them from a dog’s perspective because dogs see more shoes than anyone else”!
Erwitt could also bark like a dog to get her to react with what we perceive as human emotions. Just look at the little dog jumping high. Right next to the slideshow is the more delicate medium format photo of a group of street children in Venice in 1949. They are dirty and snotty, but the older children keep their arms protectively around the little ones. The focus is on the boys in the front right of the photographer, while the others are out of focus.
A classic picture emerges 40 years later, when the Eiffel Tower turned 100 years old. Erwitt then captured the silhouette of a man jumping over a splash in the foreground – clearly inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson.
The exhibition shows several elegant compositions with diagonal perspectives. The atmospheric beach images with drifting clouds instead have powerful horizon lines and people captured from a distance in elaborate positions.
Erwitt had a special eye for visual fatalism, for example when a statue of a Mexican saint is given a “Gloria” by an actually profane antenna. Or the one from the Florida Keys, where the shape of a heron is repeated in a faucet. And then we have the neatly dressed lady in Managua who appears to have bare breasts – but which turn out to be pumpkins wedged in a half-open blind.
According to Erwitt himself, it was him “a committed observer of people”. But especially from women. He was clearly a womanizer, married four times and the father of six children. Marilyn Monroe appeared to be enjoying his company, casually immortalized with her head tilted sensually back.
In this case, Erwitt’s statement that he rarely stages images but “waits for them” is entirely accurate. However, he had to admit to occasional agreements. Perhaps the orchestration is clearly visible in the image where a young woman holds her hands on her head, similar to the female sculpture in the background. As in the image in which one of his daughters stands in a rigid pose modeled on those in the series of ancient Egyptian sculptures in the Metropolitan Museum.
What Erwitt really succeeds in is conveying moods and capturing narrative moments – sometimes historical, often humorous. In the biographical film of the exhibition “I bark at dogs” you can feel his sense of humor, but also his seriousness as a professional photographer.
However, I wonder about it the technical quality of Erwitt’s initially analogue photographs, taken with a Leica or Rolleiflex. In any case, the digital prints shown on Fotografiska are noticeably grainy and sometimes even blurry. For many shutterbugs, myself included, this detracts from the experience.
However, this is only visible up close. To fully appreciate Elliott Erwitt’s humorous and stylish photography, it is necessary to take a step back.
Read more: Elliott Erwitt’s imagery makes you laugh
Read more about art on dn.se
