Above: Photographer Eliot Elisofon in the Congo, 1951 (Joan Elisofon/National Museum of African Art)

Time’s passage can elevate and it can also erase. Once great men can see their fame grow as the years pass while others who were prominent in their day are practically forgotten. The latter circumstance is the unfortunate case with Eliot Elisofon, arguably a lost titan of 20th century photography. If the name does not ring a bell, you’re not alone. While Elisofon was a staff photographer for LIFE magazine during WWII and after, part of a team of luminaries like Alfred Eisenstadt and Margaret Bourke-White among others, his name is not very well known today. And that is a pity because Elisofon had an important and multifaceted career from the 1930s until his death in 1973.

American soldiers in North Africa during the Allied Tunisia Campaign, 1943 (Eliot Elisofon—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Jessica Tandy & Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, 1947 (Eliot Elisofon—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Born on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1911, Elisofon graduated from Fordham University and promptly became a member of the socially conscious Photo League in 1936. Continue reading →