W. Eugene Smith
Plates contributed
The 4 plates attributed to W. Eugene Smith in the 1955 MoMA Master Checklist (Exhibition #569).
| ID | Country | Section | Year | View |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| photo-0099 | USA | Family and children | — | Clervaux |
| photo-0333 | USA | Play, learning, and education | — | Clervaux |
| photo-0367 | USA | Rededication, peace, and the future | — | Clervaux |
| photo-0488 | USA | Rededication, peace, and the future | 1946 | Clervaux |
Notes
Four plates in the catalog (count verified by strict-match grep against data/photographs.csv 2026-05-09): photo-0099 (Children B, USA), photo-0333 (Learning, USA), photo-0367 (Aloneness and Compassion, USA), photo-0488 (Childhood Magic, USA — A Walk to Paradise Garden, 1946 — THE CLOSING IMAGE of the entire 503-plate exhibition per src-moma-archives-highlights-1955, in repo). Born 1918; died 1978 per src-icp-w-eugene-smith-archive (in repo, fetched 2026-05-09: ‘1918 - 1978’ / ‘American’) and src-magnum-w-eugene-smith (in repo, fetched 2026-05-09; sidebar prints ‘b. 1918’ and ‘d. 1978’). DAY-OF-BIRTH DISCREPANCY: src-wikipedia-w-eugene-smith-pointer (in repo) renders the birth as ‘December 30, 1918’; src-britannica-w-eugene-smith (in repo, fetched 2026-05-09) renders ‘December 20, 1918’. ICP and Magnum give only year-level resolution. Discrepancy recorded; not adjudicated this round. The October 15, 1978 death day-month token is corroborated by both Wikipedia and Britannica. Wichita, Kansas birthplace verbatim per src-icp-w-eugene-smith-archive (‘Born and reared in Wichita, Kansas’) and src-magnum-w-eugene-smith (‘born in 1918 in Wichita, Kansas’). Tucson, Arizona deathplace per src-britannica-w-eugene-smith (‘Tucson’) and src-magnum-w-eugene-smith (‘A year after moving to Tucson to teach at the University of Arizona, Smith died of a stroke’). Magnum joining year 1955 verbatim per src-icp-w-eugene-smith-archive (‘In 1955, he joined Magnum, the international cooperative photography agency’); src-magnum-w-eugene-smith records the same year as ‘resigning [from Life] in order to join Magnum Photos as an associate’ with ‘In 1957, he became a full member of Magnum.’ War correspondent in the Pacific theater verbatim per src-icp-w-eugene-smith-archive (‘During World War II he was a war correspondent in the Pacific theater for the Ziff-Davis publishing company and LIFE’); the Okinawa wounding (1945) is verbatim per the same source. Best-known photo essays ‘Country Doctor’, ‘Spanish Village’, and ‘A Man of Mercy’ per src-icp-w-eugene-smith-archive. The ‘Minamata’ photo essay is verbatim per the same source. NOTRE DAME LOCATION ERROR: src-magnum-w-eugene-smith renders ‘Notre Dame University in Wichita’ which is a factual error (Notre Dame is in South Bend, Indiana); src-icp-w-eugene-smith-archive correctly says ‘a photography scholarship to the University of Notre Dame.’ src-wikipedia-w-eugene-smith-pointer describes him verbatim as ‘perhaps the single most important American photographer in the development of the editorial photo essay’. A Walk to Paradise Garden (1946) shows his two children walking hand in hand towards a clearing in woods; Steichen selected it as the closing image of FoM, anchoring the exhibition’s redemptive ‘return to children / new life’ arc per the institutional MoMA-archives summary.
External biography
https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/w-eugene-smith
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src-britannica-w-eugene-smith