Man in Times Square, New York

Louis Stettner

1954 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

Born in Brooklyn, Louis Stettner enlisted in the U.S. Army Signal Corps at age eighteen and requested to be trained as a combat photographer. He served during World War II in New Guinea and the Philippines and after armistice was sent to Hiroshima, Japan. This formative experience would shape his life as a photographer: "It is hard to assess what taking battle pictures has meant to me as a photographer. I do know that I lived and fought together with my fellow countrymen—fishermen, industrial workers, storekeepers—whom I had only brushed up against in Times Square. . . . How they successfully fought against fascism has given me a faith in human beings that has never left me."

Artist

Louis Stettner

Date

1954

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gift of the artist, 1986