One of the most widely recognized and reproduced images and ode to motherhood to date is the photograph of Elliott Erwitt’s wife, with their newborn daughter and their cat, in 1953, in their small apartment in Manhattan.
The photo was taken when his daughter Helen was 6 days old and Elliott, 24, had just finished the army.
Elliott Erwitt started taking pictures from high school. He was born in Paris, lived in Italy, and moved when he was 11 with his family in Los Angeles. In 1953 he became a member of the famous Magnum photography agency.
An interesting story behind this image is that with this photo Erwitt participates in a competition and wins a prize, but he refuses the prize because the sponsor wanted the copyright to the photo and thus to receive any future pay. “This is probably one of the smartest things I’ve ever done,” Elliott Erwitt says of his refusal. He still jokes, saying that this photo paid for the education of Ellen and his other children.
While for the photographic world this image is a milestone in media history, for Erwitt, it is simply “a family photo of my first child, my first wife and my cat,” he says. “I still see her as a snapshot. But it happens to be a very good photo. ”
His daughter Ellen Erwitt, now 64, a mother of two, living in the San Francisco Bay Area, says of the popular photo: “I’m surprised how many people” know “me and my family.”
