Mark Shaw (June 25, 1921 – January 26, 1969) was an American fashion and celebrity photographer in the 1950s and 1960s. He worked for Life magazine from 1952 to 1968, during which time 27 issues of Life carried cover photos by Shaw. Shaw's work also appeared in Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, Mademoiselle, and many other publications. He is best known for his photographs of John F. Kennedy, his wife Jacqueline Kennedy, and their children, Caroline and John F. Kennedy, Jr. In 1964, many of these images were published in the book The John F. Kennedys: A Family Album, which became a bestseller.
Early life
Shaw was born Mark Schlossman to working-class parents of Eastern European heritage in New York City and grew up on the Lower East Side. His mother Rebecca (or Reva) Silverstein (also Kanzer) (1895–1960) was a seamstress of Russian and Polish extraction; his father Joseph Charles Schlossman was a laborer and/or salesman of Austrian descent. They divorced while Mark was still a boy. Later he attended New York University, where he studied industrial design, and Pratt Institute, where he studied engineering and likely was exposed to photography as well.
In December 1941, Shaw completed ROTC training with a lieutenant's commission. A month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force as Mark Schlossman, recording his occupation at enlistment as "photographer". He served as a pilot throughout World War II, and was highly decorated, flying fighters with the British forces in the North African Campaign and later flying transports over The Hump from India to China. Due to his expertise with multiengine planes, he was then assigned to Russian General Georgy Zhukov as his personal pilot. Shaw also flew one of the escort planes accompanying General Douglas MacArthur on his way to Tokyo to accept the Japanese surrender.
At some point during or soon after the war, Mark (and his mother) changed their surname (Schlossman) to "Shaw", probably in order to sound more "American", which was a common motivation for name changes at the time.
Career
After the war, Shaw began his professional photography career in New York City, managing the photographic studio at Harper's Bazaar, where he came under the influence and mentorship of art director Alexey Brodovitch. From 1946 to 1948, Shaw did fashion photography for Harper's Bazaar and began acquiring advertising clients as well.
In 1949, Shaw married Geraldine "Geri" Trotta, who was a professional fashion and travel writer for several publications including Mademoiselle. The couple bought a brownstone on the East side of midtown Manhattan. Shaw established his photography studio in a carriage house behind their home. Starting in 1951, Shaw contributed fashion images to Mademoiselle.
In 1952, Shaw became a freelance photographer for Life magazine and preferred freelancing throughout his career so that he could retain the rights to all of his work—a goal which he was able to achieve even with his most famous images. Trotta's connections further expanded Mark's access to celebrities and public figures, and his career flourished. Freelancing on over 100 assignments for Life, Shaw photographed many actresses, actors, politicians, and other celebrities, while also frequently working photo shoots in the fashion industry. He was the first photographer to portray the Paris fashion collections backstage in color.
In 1953, probably because of his fashion experience, Shaw was assigned to photograph the young actress Audrey Hepburn during the filming of Paramount's Sabrina. Evasive at first, Hepburn became comfortable with Shaw's presence over a two-week period and allowed him to record many of her casual and private moments. This produced some of his best-known images, though most of the negatives were subsequently lost for many years. Life published several of these photos in the December 7, 1953 issue, which also carried a Shaw cover of Hepburn.
Also during the 1950s, Shaw and fellow fashion and portrait photographer Richard Avedon contributed concurrently to a well-known, long-running ad campaign for Vanity Fair lingerie. Shaw won numerous Art Directors Club awards for his creative images in this campaign.