by Barbara Keegan
With the presidential elections coming up, the Schumacher Gallery managed to snag an exhibit fitting for the times. The American Presidents: Photographs from the Archives of the Associated Press is a collection of the most outstanding pictures taken from the AP Images photo archive.
The AP first started covering American presidents after Zachary Taylor won the election in 1848.
Without modern day media, the AP was the only way news could get out to the public quickly around the time of the Civil War.
In 1935 the AP ended up launching the world’s first photograph service, a program called Wirephoto, and changed the world of photography as we knew it.
Only a small amount of presidents were friendly with the photographers, including Gerald Ford, H.W. Bush, Reagan, and George W. Bush. Harry S. Truman was the only president that truly enjoyed having the photographers around, though. Truman called them his “Just One More” club.
They currently spend seven days a week, starting around 9:00am, keeping an eye on the president.
The golden rule of the Associated Press is to “Never take your lens off of the man when he is in public.”
This motto gave the AP some of their most famous pictures like a sequence of the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, the last moments of JFK, and a picture of Kennedy and Eisenhower shot from between the legs of a secret service agent.
“We rented this exhibit several years ago in anticipation of the election. Displaying archived photos of the American President from the Associated Press is a very timely exhibit.
The exhibit was originally designed to go on tour after the election, but we were able to talk the curators into letting the tour begin early so it could correlate with the Presidential election,” David Gentilini, the Assistant to the Director at Schumacher Gallery said.
The exhibit consists of over 70 professional photographs taken in all types of weather during any kind of personal or professional event.
Some of the most well known photos of our country’s presidents can be found in this collection, such as “George W. Bush, September 11, 2001” where Bush is given the information about the second plane crashing into the World Trade Centers in the middle of a book reading at an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida.
“Truman Dewey Headline” can also be found in the archives; the famous photo of President Harry S. Truman holding up a newspaper headline claiming that Dewey had beaten him in the election.
The Associated Press took pictures of all members of the presidential family, including the animals.
In one photo, a marine salutes the dog of George W. Bush, a Scottish terrier named Barney, as he departs from Marine One after a trip back home.
In another, the first cat of Bill Clinton, Socks, sits on the podium in the briefing room as he casually admires the sights around him.
Pictures of celebrities meeting presidents are common in the archives as well, including titles such as “Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley,” “Bill Clinton and Arsenio Hall,” “George H.W.
Bush and Lee Atwater,” “Warren Harding and Babe Ruth,” and “Richard Nixon and Sammy Davis Jr.”
Here until December 7th, the Schumacher Gallery is located on the fourth floor of Blackmore Library and is open from 1:00pm to 5:00pm on Monday through Saturday.
bkeegan@capital.edu
