Born 1918, Wichita, Kansas
Died 1978, Tucson, Arizona


Smith attended the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana (1936–37), before studying at the New York Institute of Photography (1937). He then worked for various magazines and agencies as a photojournalist, including Newsweek (1937–38), Black Star (1938–43), Parade (1942), and, notably, Life (1939–42, 1944–45, 1947–55). During World War II Smith served as a war correspondent for Flying magazine (1943), then rejoined Life, covering the Pacific war (1944–45). He was wounded while photographing marines at Okinawa. After the war, in 1947, Smith joined the Photo League, where he lectured and helped to raise money. When the League was blacklisted, he helped to compose its official letter of response and served as the last League president (1948–50). He joined the Magnum photographers' agency in 1956 and taught photography at the New School for Social Research (1958), the School of Visual Arts (1968–69), and the Center for Creative Photography (1977–78). He is one of the masters of the photo essay: from 1955 to 1958 he produced the monumental Pittsburgh Project and his series on a nurse midwife in the rural South (1951), the humanitarian activist Albert Schweitzer (1954), and mercury poisoning in Minimata, Japan (1971) are particularly celebrated. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including "The Family of Man" at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1955) and the retrospective "Let Truth Be the Prejudice" at the Jewish Museum, New York (1970).