Images of History: The Black Star Agency

Based in New York City, the Black Star Agency is a photographic service with a remarkable place in history. Its photographers have played a major role in capturing the images that help define the 20th century. Its legacy of almost 300,000 black and white prints form Ryerson’s Black Star Historical Black & White Photography Collection.

Almost every major event from the 20th century is covered in the Collection, as is nearly every person of cultural or political significance: from Chaplin to Joplin; Stalin to Reagan; Hemingway, Matisse, and Joe Louis. It is an eyewitness to history, and many photos, first published in Life magazine, are instantly recognizable.

Black Star was founded in 1935 by Kurt Safranski, Kurt Kornfeld, and Ernest Mayer. They were all fleeing Hitler’s Germany, Mayer bringing with him the soul of his Berlin-based photo agency: 5,000 photographs. In New York, the Agency was well-positioned for the dawn of an unprecedented era in photojournalism.

When Life magazine was launched in 1936, the Black Star Agency quickly became an important supplier of photographs to the new magazine. With its unprecedented use of photos to tell stories, Life brought a fresh look to magazines in North America and was enormously successful from the start. According to photo-historian Marianne Fulton, Life brought Black Star 30 to 40 per cent of its business.

An extraordinary number of outstanding photographers produced the work that makes up Ryerson’s Black Star Historical Black & White Photography Collection. Many are established figures in the history of photography, whose influence has shaped photographic practice in the 20th century. A short list would include Robert Capa, Andreas Feininger, Germaine Krull, Philippe Halsmann, Martin Munkacsi, W. Eugene Smith, Marion Post-Wolcott, Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Mario Giacomelli.

Photographers represented within the Collection produced both news photos and extended photo-essays. Their work was regularly seen, beyond Life magazine, in major publications such as Look, The Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, Pageant, Coronet, Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, McCall’s, Cosmopolitan, news publications such as The New York Times, Time, and Newsweek, as well as Sunday supplement magazines such as Parade, American Weekly and This Week.

The subject matter of Ryerson’s Black Star Historical Black & White Photography Collection is wide-ranging. The Collection is particularly well known for its coverage in:

• European and American life before the Second World War
• The Second World War, Spanish Civil War and the Japanese invasion of China
• Post-war life in Europe and America
• The Civil Rights era, for which the Collection is particularly distinguished
• The Vietnam War, including the French phase
• 20th century political figures
• American presidents
• Popular culture: in trends, lifestyles and headline events
• Personalities in sports, entertainment and cultural fields
• Fashion photographs
• Scientific advancement in diverse fields, particularly space exploration

In 1963, stewardship of the Black Star Agency passed from its founders to Howard and Ben Chapnick, who had been with the company for many years. Howard served as president from 1964 to 1988, and his role focused on advocacy for the creative process, and nurturing numbers of the agency’s photographers. He died in 1996, and is considered a legend in the industry for the mentoring role he played with photographers, curators and others interested in the photographic medium. His cousin, Ben, currently President of the company, continues as both the driving business force of the operation as well as a strong creative presence.

The Black Star Agency remains a successful photographic agency in New York City. By the time Life magazine ceased publication in 1972, Black Star had already begun the shift of focus toward new markets, including corporate reports and book publishing. The increased use of colour photography meant that the historical black and white Collection was less commercially viable. However, it is now recognized as a remarkable visual legacy of the 20th century, with extraordinary artistic and documentary value.

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