Eastern Front -Western Front: World War II Photojournalism

Eastern Front-Western Front

World War II Photojournalism by Georgi Zelma and Constance Stuart Larrabee

Eastern FrontWestern Front

World War II Photojournalism by Georgi Zelma and Constance Stuart Larrabee

February 4 – March 19, 2023

Featuring Materials from the Corcoran Legacy Collection

Laura Roulet, Curator

Georgi Zelma, Southern Front, near Ungenyi, Ukraine, June 24, 1941. Vintage gelatin silver print, sheet: 6 × 8 7/8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2573

Constance Stuart Larrabee, Liberation, France, August 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 15 1/16 × 19 7/8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.1998.8.89

Eastern Front-Western Front World War II Photojournalism by Georgi Zelma and Constance Stuart Larrabee

By Laura Roulet, Curator

Both Georgi Zelma and Constance Stuart Larrabee are war photographers, but only Zelma is a combat photographer. Zelma covered the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the deadliest in World War II, for the Soviet newspaper Izvestia. Not only was he embedded with the Soviet troops, he inserted himself into the midst of battle, giving the impression that he was shooting his camera directly over the soldiers’ shoulders. Larrabee was South Africa’s first accredited female war correspondent. Because of her gender, Larrabee was not permitted on the front lines. She covered the civilian, non-combatant experience, not often included as war photography. Her subjects may be off-duty troops, women or children, appearing posed, in medium close-up, often with calm, relaxed expressions reflecting the brief historical interlude of liberation—relief and exultation—following grim years of foreign invasion and occupation, yet before the heartrending photographs of concentration camps and mass casualties emerged. If World War II were a play, Zelma is writing the climax and Larrabee presents the denouement. His photos are animated with intense drama, but both are full of emotion, and integral to the war story. This exhibition explores the nature of gendered approaches to war photojournalism, and the processes of pre-digital photography.

War photography treads a fine line of ethical reporting. Photojournalists strive to tell the truth about the scenes they witness, while at the same time, respecting the privacy and dignity of war’s victims. Their central dilemma is in reporting the reality of war, and creating an impactful image, without sensationalizing violence. The Civil War was the first American conflict to be extensively documented by photographers such as Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner and Timothy O’Sullivan. Some conventions of war photography emerged from the public reception of their photos, which were mainly

circulated in the form of the illustrated press and stereographs. Though not yet regulated by the military, Northern photographers tended to only document Confederate dead. A practice that has generally continued to the present day. “After the Civil War, military policies in many Western countries quickly evolved to officially forbid photographing the dead of one’s own forces on the battlefield, or sometimes even in coffins.”1

The Civil War expanded the adoption of photography taken in the field, usually in the form of albumen or collodion plate prints, which were then copied as engravings, to use as illustrations in print media. Publishers realized that the real-life immediacy of photographs enhanced their news coverage, built readership, and increased advertising revenue. By World War II, weekly and monthly magazines such as Life, Look, and Time, along with daily newspapers, were the primary news sources for most Americans, creating a demand for more photographers. World War II photographers fell into three categories: official photographers, working for a military branch; photojournalists, working for a print or film media outlet; and freelance commercial or amateur photographers.

Technological development also played a major role in the practices of photojournalism. The invention of the lightweight 35mm camera used with flexible, celluloid film in the 1920s revolutionized war photography by enabling photographers to capture the action of battle, and swiftly relay film to their publishers. The preferred camera used by Soviet, and many other photojournalists for much of the 20th century, was the compact, portable 35mm camera, such as the German-made Leica. While using flexible film instead of glass or metal plates was a great advancement for photojournalism, (and perhaps incomprehensible to digital photographers today,) the process does not allow one to see the photos until they are developed, often first in the form of contact prints. A contact print is made by cutting a roll of film into strips, laying the film negative onto photo-sensitive paper, and developing it as one sheet. Most of Zelma’s photographs, previously donated to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, are in the form of small proofs or contact prints, annotated by the photographer, and attached to envelopes. Those marked with red circles are presumably the ones chosen by him to send, and his Moscow editor to publish. Larrabee’s film negatives and contact prints on display give an idea of how selective she was in composing each shot, and

Georgi Zelma, Stalingrad Battle, “Life is Life”, December 1942. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on an envelope, sheet: 2 7/8 × 4 1/2 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2584

Georgi Zelma, D. A. Fredlin, Photojournalist with the 284 Artillery Division, Stalingrad, December 1942. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on an envelope, sheet: 2 5/8 × 4 1/2 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2546

Constance Stuart Larrabee, On Guard, South African Army, Cairo, Egypt, 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 19 7/8 × 16 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.1998.8.64

which other options were left on the roll. Her markings indicate her directions to the developer on cropping, burning (darkening) or dodging (lightening) certain areas. Her archives of Libertas magazine, also on display, indicate which photographs were actually published at the time.

Ever since Queen Victoria sent Roger Fenton to document the Crimean War in 1855 (close to the beginnings of photography itself), in hopes of influencing public opinion about British involvement in the war, governments have seen photojournalism as a potential propaganda tool. British photographer Jimmy Hare’s 1898 photo of the exploded U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor was a factor in favoring American intervention against Spain, resulting in the Spanish-American War. Allied military policy of strictly limiting commercial and amateur photography during World War I was reversed in World War II. In the U.S., facilitating and regulating war photographers’ access to conflict was a means of turning the isolationist public into patriotic supporters for entering another world war, a war that would entail significant sacrifice.

Constance Stuart Larrabee, The Riviera, France, 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 15 7/8 × 19 15/16 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.1998.8.71

Despite the fact that Zelma and Larrabee were covering different phases and battlegrounds in World War II, and that they were of different genders, political backgrounds and nationalities, they similarly both presented the Allied forces as the morally just side. The heroes and ordinary people depicted are Soviet, French, Italian, South African and American. The only dead troops pictured are Germans, who are not only the enemy, but presented as morally evil. Warfare is treated unequivocally as an ethically justified, honorable act, and some degree of government control of the media message is assumed on both sides. Much of this compliance with official policy would change for U.S. photographers during the Vietnam War, an unpopular, ethically ambiguous war fought in a non-Western country. Maintaining objectivity as a witness to history versus creating a politically propagandizing image remains an issue for photojournalists today.

Constance Stuart Larrabee, France, 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 10 x 8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.TL 2000.36.504

As a trained, professional photojournalist, Zelma was experienced at working within the Soviet propaganda machine, but perhaps not prepared for the horrific conditions he faced during the winter of siege warfare from 1942-1943. Larrabee owned a successful portrait studio in Pretoria and was recognized for her documentary tribal photography. As she recounts in “Jeep Trek,” a photo essay published after the war, Libertas magazine filed her credentials as South Africa’s first and only woman war correspondent.2 She boarded a military aircraft in July 1944, bound for Cairo, with one Rolleiflex camera (her own) and eighteen rolls of film. Working as a freelancer, she had little institutional support or direction, but was eager for a great adventure.

Georgi Zelma, Forward, Stalingrad, 1942. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on an envelope, sheet: 2 5/8 × 4 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2557

Georgi Anatolevich Zelma (1906-1984) was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan into a Russian Jewish family.3 After growing up and training in Moscow, he began working as a technician for Rusfoto agency in the 1920s. By the 1930s, he was well-known for his photography in Central Asia, and became a key figure in the Constructivist movement, defining the proper role of the artist in the post-revolutionary era. He sided with avant-garde photographers such as Aleksandr Rodchenko and El Lissitzky, members of the October group, which advocated a new aesthetic language utilizing abstract composition, raking angles, and montage. The ROPF (Union of Russian Proletarian Photographers) pushed for serving the proletariat through ideological propaganda and more easily comprehended imagery, the style of art that became Socialist Realism. The competing groups were ended by governmental decree in 1932, ordering one artist union, which served as an instrument of state political power. As analyzed in a 1989 post-Glasnost issue of Aperture, “Photographic images in the Soviet Union were not judged according to whether they provided a true or false picture of reality, but were used to create a reality of their own.”4 Zelma’s contemporary, Dmitri Baltermants remembers his World War II colleagues, who “fought armed only with their cameras.” Inspired by Western war correspondents such as Robert Capa, “We Soviet photographers also went off to war ‘untrained.’ Many died bravely. Only many years later, after the end of the war, did it become clear how many magnificent photographs had been made on the fronts by our photographers.”5 Most were censored by Soviet officials, and not published during the war. Baltermants also recalls the impact of Western media: “The mass picture magazines, in which photography occupied a special place, played an important role for me. Life, Paris Match, Stern, Der Spiegel, Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung and others contributed to a reverent attitude toward photographs and their makers, setting high standards for photographers around the world.”6

Following the breakdown of the Germany-USSR Non-Aggression Pact (1939), Hitler invaded Russia in June 1941, creating a two-thousand-mile Eastern front. By fall, the Germans were within twenty-five miles of Moscow, provoking a massive Soviet counter-offensive. The Battle of Stalingrad stretched from August 1942 to January 1943, with estimated casualties on both sides, including civilians and prisoners-of-war, of between one and two million. Hitler and Stalin both refused to allow their armies to retreat, leading to a grim standoff along the Volga River, completely decimating the city

Opposite: Georgi Zelma, Cinema Photographer, Stalingrad, c. 1943. Vintage gelatin silver print, sheet: 4 × 6 1/8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2593

Georgi Zelma, Battle for Stalingrad, Hero of Stalingrad, Sniper, Vasiliy Zaitsev, 1943. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on board, sheet: 23 3/8 × 19 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2602

Georgi Zelma, Variant Finally He got to the Volga River, January 1943. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on an envelope, sheet: 2 3/4 × 4 1/4 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2530

Georgi Zelma, Finally He got to the Volga River, January 1943. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on an envelope, sheet: 3 3/8 × 9 3/8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2535

Georgi Zelma, Finally He got to the Volga River, January 1943. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on an envelope, sheet: 2 7/8 × 4 1/8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2529

of Stalingrad. Against Hitler’s orders, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus finally surrendered in what was seen as Germany’s worst defeat in the war thus far, and a psychological turning point, sparking hope, for the Allies.

Zelma’s documentation of this infamous battle captures many of its unique characteristics. Stalingrad was entrenched, urban warfare, with catastrophic loss of life and material. After the city was reduced to rubble, the troops continued to fight on a smaller scale, block by block and house by house. As Anthony Beevor describes in his comprehensive history, a “sniper cult” arose within the Russian army. Partly as a propaganda tool, each death by sniper fire was recorded in the press, with individual sharpshooters becoming heroes: “A new cult of ‘sniperism’ was launched, and as the twenty-fifth anniversary of the October Revolution approached, the propaganda surrounding this black art became frenzied, with ‘a new wave of socialistic competition for the largest number of Fritzes killed’… The most famous sniper of them all, although not the highest scorer was Zaitsev in Batyuk’s division, who, during the October Revolution celebrations, raised his tally of kills to 149 Germans.”7 One of those heroizing portraits of Vasily Zaitsev was taken by Zelma, and undoubtably published back in Moscow. Zelma frequently inserts himself into the fray, as part of the action, in what might be called an “over the top” perspective8. Often one body or fragment of wreckage is a synecdochical representation for the massive human losses. One iconic image of a dead, (presumably) German soldier, lying on the banks of the Volga, is printed three times, from multiple angles, even moving a barrel to frame the figure in different positions. One version of this photo, Finally He Got to the Volga River (January 1943), is expanded to include more negative space around the figure. It is unclear which version was ultimately chosen as most successful. Zelma also records his fellow photojournalists, visiting commanders, and a few quiet moments of comradery. Final images taken in the spring of 1943 show women beginning the monumental task of cleaning up and rebuilding the city.

Constance Stuart Larrabee (1914–2000) was born in Cornwall, England, and moved to South Africa as an infant.9 When her parents separated, she and her mother moved to Pretoria. In 1933, she studied photography at the Regent Street Polytechnic School of Art in London, a curriculum that encouraged her later focus on portraiture. Just in time to observe the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party, she studied at the Bavarian State Institute for Photography in Munich from 1935-36. In Germany, she adopted the Rolleiflex, a twin-lens reflex, medium format camera, which remained her go-to camera throughout her career. This model of camera allows for eye contact with the subject as it is held waist-high and focused from above. She grew confident enough with the settings that when her light meter later broke, she didn’t bother to repair it, just going with her experience. Other lessons she learned from the German instructors were to create sharp tonal contrast, focus on composition instead of cropping, and not to waste film. This economy of means became important during the war as her film supplies were extremely limited. After Libertas magazine failed to rustle up more rolls of film in response to an urgent cable sent in September 1944, she relied on the kindness of other photojournalists.

After returning to South Africa from Munich, Larrabee opened a portrait studio in Pretoria, and began traveling into the countryside to photograph local tribes such as the Ndebele, Xhosa and Sotho peoples. Two of her tribal photographs were included in the renowned Family of Man (1955) exhibition organized by Edward Steichen for the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her biographer Peter Elliott and later generations of South African photographers are somewhat critical of her anthropological approach to documenting Black South Africans, failing to provide social context during a turbulent political period leading up to the 1948 imposition of apartheid. I see her perspective as typical and expected for a White woman of her generation, raised in a highly segregated society. Larrabee’s response in later life interviews was that her focus was always on aesthetics and professional assignments, not a political agenda. In addition to Black South Africans, she created photo essays of the various socio-economic strata of White South African society, the Afrikaners, and Alan Paton, author of Cry, the Beloved

Country. She depicts all of her subjects with respect and dignity. A revealing disclosure from a later phase of her life comes in the form of a 1957 letter written to Alan Meadley, a South African friend, who was considering moving to the United States, as she had done in 1949 after marrying U.S. Colonel Sterling Loop Larrabee. They happily settled on the Eastern Shore in Chestertown, Maryland and she became a U.S. citizen in 1953. In her letter, she admires many aspects of American life, but admits, “The thing I found hardest to adjust to was the color problem. It is so different from the S. African one and I am not sure I am completely adjusted yet.”10 Examination of the underlying racial dynamics of her South African photography may be fruitful for future scholars. However, her World War II photography stands apart as a self-contained body of work. After the war, she returned to commercial and documentary photography. In the last phase of her life, she was active in organizing her archives and placing them with receptive institutions. In 1998, her African tribal photography was donated to the Smithsonian African Art Museum. Her World War II photography and extensive archives went to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, now in the American University Museum collection, and George Washington University Special Collections Research Center. Her final body of work made on the Eastern Shore was given to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.

In July 1944, when Constance Stuart (still her maiden name) set off to cover the war for Libertas magazine, she was a freelancer with war correspondent credentials, but little institutional support or journalistic training. She quickly learned to follow the lead of other photojournalists, so when the action subsided in Cairo, Egypt, her first stop, she followed the media pool to Rome, Italy. After D-Day in the South of France, she became embedded with the U.S. 7th Army, photographing the Free French Interior (FFI) insurgent fighters and the Allied progress through France. Making her way north, she reached Paris soon after liberation by French and American armies. The images she captures are of the beginning of the end of war. A weary population ground down by four years of Nazi occupation; vigilante persecution of collaborators; civilians picking up the pieces. Often, she was drawn to portraiture, her specialty as a photographer, and a genre that her chosen Rolli camera was uniquely well-suited for.

Constance Stuart Larrabee, Seller of Spices in Mussky, Cairo, Egypt, July – August 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 16 × 19 7/8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.1998.8.63

Constance Stuart Larrabee, D-Day, Beach head, The Riviera, France, 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 20 x 16 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.TL 2000.36.83

Constance Stuart Larrabee, Evacuating Wounded on Riviera Beachhead, August 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 19 15/16 × 16 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.1998.8.77

Two examples of her selection process are her photos of an American Red Cross hospital ship, and a group of French women whose heads have been shaven as a form of public shaming for their fraternization with Germans during the war. The wide-angle shot of the ship, anchored off the French Riviera, shows a deck covered shoulder to shoulder with dazed, wounded soldiers. The close-up shot that she chose to reproduce has a radically changed tone and focus. Instead of chaos and misery, one sailor is posed against a backdrop of the U.S. flag, with the casually sexist pin-up figure of “D-Day Dolly” prominently displayed below. Photographed from a low angle, he is elevated in stature. His expression is relaxed, even light-hearted. The position of his arms mirrors the pin-up’s limbs. The only sign of the fierce D-Day invasion experienced by the injured troops on deck is the tattered Stars and Stripes behind him. A few days later, when Larrabee encountered seven women facing “primitive reprisals”11 for their collaboration with the occupying troops, she takes a wide-angle shot of the group, but then homes in on one woman, who is covering her face in shame and cradling her shorn hair in the crook of her arm. Larrabee seems to find the individual narrative to be the most compelling, despite the greater information given in a wider frame. Larrabee maintained that she was an art photographer, guided by aesthetics, not a photojournalist. She rarely interviewed her subjects or supplied extensive captions. Of course, this independent approach could only last for so long.

By the end of September, her editor at Libertas writes that her first photos from Cairo “have gone astray,” and they are just receiving her photos from Rome and France. His story ideas are for an “our girl on the front” photo essay, which is in fact published in March 1945 (reprinting the story by Cyril James, from the British periodical Union Jack, February 20, 1945).12 In mid-October, Lt. Col. E.G. Malherbe from S.A. Public Relations, Advance Press H.Q. sends a more pointed directive. He is perturbed to discover that she is in Paris with the U.S. 7th Army rather than covering the South Africans, holed up in Northern Italy. “I must confess I was a bit disappointed in not finding you here on the job. Of course I do not know what you are doing in France. It may be very interesting, and may even have a South African angle, but frankly I would find it rather embarrassing to justify your trip to the authorities with whom I have battled so persistently to give you an air passage.” He reminds her that “the propaganda Directive under which you were supposed to work, was build up the common soldier in the minds of the South African public in

Constance Stuart Larrabee, St. Tropez, France, 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 10 x 8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.TL 2000.36.456

Constance Stuart Larrabee, The Collaborator, St. Tropez, South France, 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 20 x 16 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.TL 2000.36.67

Constance Stuart Larrabee, Track to Foxholes, Going on Patrol, Grezzana, Italy, December 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 20 × 15 7/8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.1998.8.127

cupids.”

such a way that they would regard his fighting up here as a real sacrifice, and would be made to feel under an obligation to take him back on a fair basis of re-employment in the Union.”13 Neither Soviet nor Allied journalists question being under a “propaganda directive,” and all photography and letters from a theater of war are reviewed by military censors to protect the security of troop movements. Col. Malherbe’s letter eventually catches up to Larrabee, and she is on her way to Italy by early December.

Larrabee’s photos of the 6th South African Armoured Division, known as the Springbok, were primarily the ones chosen to be published by Libertas in February, March and August 1945. Adhering more to journalistic standards, they are among the few where she identifies the subject by name, hometown and former occupation. In “Jeep Trek,” she recounts: “In France everything was on the move. We fought in towns and cities, and moved swiftly through village after village. In Italy I have come to a static front…I am the only woman and not allowed to stay in the press camp. Instead I am billeted in a cold, dirty mess hall, part of the British field dressing station. The turquoise ceiling is painted with plump cupids.”14 In anticipation of her arrival, the soldiers took the opportunity to groom, presenting a cleaned-up face for the public back home. Her portraits are characteristically composed, frontal, medium frame close-ups. She also films the stunning Italian Apennines mountains where the troops have been dug into foxholes for months of combat. While she reports feeling “touched and horrified” by the appalling conditions, little sense of squalor is conveyed in her formally beautiful photographs. After contracting tonsilitis, Larrabee decides to return home. While tempted to fly to Bagdad

“In France everything was on the move. We fought in towns and cities, and moved swiftly through village after village. In Italy I have come to a static front…I am the only woman and not allowed to stay in the press camp. Instead I am billeted in a cold, dirty mess hall, part of the British field dressing station. The turquoise ceiling is painted with plump

to report on the Free France legislature in exile or Greece (Rhodesian troops stationed), she is weary after six months on the go. By late February, she is back in Cairo, en route to South Africa.

For both Zelma and Larrabee, there is a contrast between their “official” photographs, which were cleared by censors and chosen to be published by editors during World War II, and those which may now be considered their best war photographs. For instance, Larrabee’s close-up of the French collaborator has frequently been included in war-themed exhibitions. It was only printed after the war, possibly when she organized her own brief exhibition in South Africa, and probably was not known until she distributed her prints and archives in the 1980s. After the Iron Curtain closed around the Soviet Union post-World War II, little information about Soviet artists filtered out to the global community until the 1990s, after Zelma’s death.

Zelma and Larrabee’s images are not well-known as part of our collective, historical memory of World War II. This blank slate of familiarity and expectations about these artists gives current viewers the opportunity to make their own judgments about quality, point of view, and significance as photojournalists. Both cover six-month segments of a much longer, complex, world war. Zelma adheres to conventional war photography standards, conveying the violence, destruction and death that defines the battlefield. Larrabee brings a humanistic, perhaps female, gaze to the theater of war, showing the civilian aftermath, quiet interludes, and the jubilation of liberation.

ENDNOTES

1 Anne Wilkes Tucker, War/Photography, Images of Armed Conflict and its Aftermath (New Haven: Yale University Press with Museum of Fine Arts, Houston) 2012. 201.

2 Constance Stuart Larrabee’s account of her time as a war correspondent was published in serial format in Spotlight magazine, March–August, 1945. It is reprinted in Constance Stuart Larrabee, WWII Photo Journal. (Washington D.C.: National Museum of Women in the Arts) 1989.

3 A brief biography and examples of Georgi Zelma’s work can be found on Nailya Alexander Gallery’s website: https://www.nailyaalexandergallery.com/1920s-1930s/georgy-zelma2. Accessed November 27, 2022.

4 Rosalinde Sartorti, “No More Heroic Tractors: Subverting the Legacy of Socialist Realism,” Aperture 116 (Fall 1989) 8.

5 Dmitri Baltermants, “Armed Only with a Camera: an Interview with Dmitri Baltermants,” Aperture 116 (Fall 1989) 4.

6 Ibid. 6.

7 Antony Beevor, Stalingrad, the Fateful Siege: 1942–1943. (UK: Penguin Books) 1998. 203.

8 The phrase “over the top” refers to WWI trench warfare. It was the command for troops to surge over the top of their protective trenches toward the enemy.

9 Peter Elliot’s 2018 biography, Constance: One Road to Take (Alairac, France, Cantaloup Press) is a good source of biographical information, covering all phases of her life.

10 Letter dated 20th March 1957. Correspondence located in “Constance Stuart Larrabee Archives (1936–1946),” Special Collections Research Center, George Washington University. Box 4.

11 Larrabee describes this encounter in “Jeep Trek,” reprinted in NMWA catalogue, p. 19. This entry is dated St. Tropez: August 27, 1944.

12 Letter dated 22nd September 1944, from T.E. Robertson, Libertas Magazine to Miss Constance Stuart, War Correspondent. CSL archives, SCRC, GWU.

13 Letter dated 16 October 1944, from Lt. Col. E.G. Malherbe to Miss Constance Stuart, 6th Army Group H.Q., CSL archives, SCRC, GWU.

14 See note on “Jeep Trek” above. Quote from NMWA exhibition catalogue, p. 41. Journal entry from Castiglione dei Pepoli, December 16, 1944.

WORLD WAR II MAJOR EVENTS

WITH GEORGI ZELMA AND CONSTANCE STUART LARRABEE TIMELINES

Non-AggressionPact,signed betweenAdolf Hitlerand Joseph Stalin.

AUGUST 23 ’39 Germany-USSR

SEPTEMBER1 ’39 Germany invades Poland.Sovietarmytakesover eastern Poland.September3 British Common wealthand France declarewaron Germany.

SEPTEMBER3 ’39 British Common wealthand France declarewaron Germany.

FEBRUARY ’41 German General Rommel’sAfrika Korps invade Libya.British General Montgomery commandsin NorthAfrica theaterofwar.

APRIL6 ’41 Germany invadesYugoslaviaand Greece.

DECEMBER7 ’41 JapanattacksU.S.atPearl Harbor,Hawaii.U.S declareswar againstAxis powers.

JUNE22’41 Germany invades Russia.2,000-mile front.Byfall,within25milesof Moscow.

MAY 26-29 ’40 Dunkirk evacuationof Britishand French troops.

JUNE10’40 Italydeclareswaron Franceand Britain.

JUNE22’40 France surrendersandis occupiedby Germany.

MAY ’40 German Blitzkrieg invasionof Luxembourg, Belgium,the Netherlands,and France.

SEPTEMBER ’40 Italyfights BritaininLibyaand Egypt.

AUGUST ’40 German planes begins bombing London,intheBlitz.

JANUARY’42

Axispowersof Germany,Italyand Japan.

Twenty-six nationsincludingU.S.,UK,USSRallied against

Georgi Zelma timeline

Constance Stuart Larrabee timeline

Battleof Stalingrad (Volgograd).Georgi Anatolevich Zelma coversthe

JULY-FEBRUARY’43

extendedsiegeaswar correspondentfor Izvestia.Also publishesin Ogonyak,RedStarand Pravda, allperiodicals sanctionedbythe Soviet government. Estimatesof casualtiesonboth sides,including civilians,are betweenoneandtwo million.Stalingradis notablefor entrenched urban warfareand asthe psychological turningpointofthewar.Sovietarmy, commandedby General Zhukov, manages toencircleand defeat GermanSixthArmy, surrenderedby General Paulus.

FEBRUARY ’44 Zelma embeddedwith Soviet army,coverstheir advance through Eastern Europe.

JUNE6’44

JULY15’44 Constance Stuart Larrabee departs Pretoria,SouthAfricafor Cairo,Egyptasawar correspondentfor Libertas magazine.

D-Day landingofAllied troopson Normandycoastin Operation Overlord.

AUGUST 12 ’44 Transportedto Rome.D-Dayin Southern France.

AUGUST 21 ’44 Arrivesin French Riviera.EmbeddedwithU.S. SeventhArmy, commandedby General Alexander Patch.Photographs someoftheFree Frenchofthe Interior(FFI), underground resistance fighters.

AUGUST 23–25 ’44 LiberationofParisbyU.S.andFree French troops, ledby Generalde Gaulle,endingfouryearsof German occupation.

AUGUST 27 ’44 InSt.Tropez, witnesses French women,accusedof collaboratingwiththe German Nazitroops duringthe occupation,being shavedand paraded throughthe streetsin shame.

JANUARY19’45

FEBRUARY4 ’45 Yalta Conference. President FranklinD. Roosevelt,Prime MinisterWinston Churchilland Premier JosephStalin agreeon future divided occupationof Germany.

Becomesill, returnsto Florence.

FEBRUARY5 ’45 Embeddedwiththe British EighthArmyinthe Apennine region.

Decidesto returnto South Africa.

FEBRUARY 17 ’45

Isdelousedin Rome.

FEBRUARY 27 ’45 InCairo on her return journeyto SouthAfrica.

MAY ’43 Africa clearedofAxis forces.

SEPTEMBER 23 ’44

JULY-AUGUST’43 British,Americansand Canadians conquerSicily.

(SHAEF),takesaquicktripto Londonforanew uniform.

OCTOBER1 ’44 Arrivesin Paristo record the recent liberation.

Photographs General CharlesDe Gaullein Besançon,France.

OCTOBER 16 ’44 Accreditedtothe Supreme HeadquartersAllied Expeditionary Force

Rhine River,borderwith Germany.

Photographs soldiersin Castiglionedei Pepoli,Termini,and Grezzana.

NOVEMBER 19 ’44 Backin France, travelsto Alsace-Lorraine. Comes within milesofthe

DECEMBER7 ’44 Backin Rome,shegivesaradio broadcastto SouthAfrican audience.

Lastmajor German counter-offensive againsttheAllies.

DECEMBER ’44 Battleofthe Bulge,Ardennes, Belgium.

APRIL 15 ’45 President Rooseveltdies.Vice President

APRIL 30 ’45 Hitler commits suicide.

DECEMBER 16 ’44 Reachesthe Springbok,SouthAfrica’s troops entrenchedin NorthernItaly.

MAY2 ’45 Soviets occupy Berlin.

MAY8 ’45

Hiroshimaand Nagasaki

V-EDay.Victoryin Europe.

MAY7 ’45 Germany unconditionally surrenders.

APRIL 28 ’45 Benito Mussoliniand other fascists executedby Italian partisans.Italy surrenders.

AUGUST6&9 ’45 Atomic bombs droppedon

SEPTEMBER2 ’45

V-JDay.Japan surrenders.

HarryS.Truman succeedsasU.S. President.

German situation map LAGE OST 21-11-42, showing the Stalingrad area. © IWM M83/550. www.iwm.org.uk

Battle of El Alamein, October-November 1942. © IWM M78/1. www.iwm.org.uk

Normandy operations: German situation map LAGE WEST, 25-7-44 to 1-8-44. © IWM. www.iwm.org.uk

Georgi Zelma, Battle for Stalingrad, Preparing for Battle, 1943. Vintage gelatin silver print, sheet: 5 7/8 × 12 1/2 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh), 2018.15.2604

Georgi Zelma, Battle for Stalingrad (Camouflaged horse with limbs of bushes attached), c. 1942. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on board, paper: 17 3/8 × 23 1/4 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2601

Georgi Zelma, Soviet Twin Engine Bombers in Formation, 1940s. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on an envelope, sheet: 2 1/2 × 4 1/4 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2599

Georgi Zelma, An Artist from “Grekov’s Studio” (Moscow) (name is Godinya), Stalingrad, 1942. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on an envelope, sheet: 3 7/8 × 6 1/8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2592

In

Georgi Zelma,

the Heart of Mamayev Hill, Stalingrad, 1943. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on an envelope, sheet: 3 1/4 × 4 1/2 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2591

Opposite: Georgi Zelma, The Struggle for the Apartment Pavlov, Stalingrad, 1943. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on an envelope, sheet: 2 7/8 × 4 5/8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2517

Georgi Zelma, Early Days of War (marching through snow), 1941. Vintage Gelatin silver print, sheet: 5 1/4 × 7 7/8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2606

Georgi Zelma, Captain A.E. Vanidze Inspecting the Ruins of the Plant “Red October”, c. 1942–1945. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on an envelope, sheet: 3 × 7 1/2 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2572

Georgi Zelma, Guarding the Cotton Harvest on the Collective Farm, UzCCP, Miriam Kurdinova, 1943. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on an envelope, sheet: 4 3/8 × 3 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2597

Georgi Zelma, The Hydro Power Station, Volgograd, c. 1970. Vintage gelatin silver print, sheet: 6 × 9 1/4 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2598

Georgi Zelma, Church Tower in Ruins, Nuremberg, 1945. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on an envelope, sheet: 3 3/4 × 5 3/8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2524

Georgi Zelma, Spring Time in Stalingrad, 1943. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on an envelope, sheet: 2 3/4 × 4 1/4 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2582

Georgi Zelma, Rebuilding the Hero City, (Stalingrad) (detail), April 1943. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on an envelope, sheet: 4 1/4 × 5 1/4 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2542

Constance Stuart Larrabee, Ste. Maxime, Riviera, France, August 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 15 7/8 × 19 15/16 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.1998.8.76

Constance Stuart Larrabee, France, 1944. Vintage gelatin silver print, sheet: 10 x 8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.TL 2000.36.530

Constance Stuart Larrabee, The “Free French.” The Riviera, France, 1944, August 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 19 7/8 × 16 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.1998.8.70

Constance Stuart Larrabee, Besançon, France (Charles de Gaulle), 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 10 x 8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.TL 2000.36.455

Constance Stuart Larrabee, Paris, France, 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 20 x 16 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.TL 2000.36.88

Constance Stuart Larrabee, Paris, France, 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 20 x 16 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.TL 2000.36.68

Constance Stuart Larrabee, Rustenburg Tobacco Farmer, Grezzana, Italy, December 1944 –January 1945. Gelatin

silver print, sheet: 11 3/4 × 13 3/4 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance

Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.1998.8.28

Constance Stuart Larrabee, Italian Winter, December 1944 –January 1945. Gelatin

silver print, sheet: 11 13/16 × 12 7/16 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance

Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.1998.8.6

Constance

CGA.1998.8.121

Stuart Larrabee, Grezzana, Italy, 1944, 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 15 15/16 × 20 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection).

Constance Stuart Larrabee, Marseille, France, September 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 16 × 19 7/8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.1998.8.86

Constance Stuart Larrabee, South African Soldier Guarding Two Italian P.O.W.s, Castiglione, Italy, December 1944 – January 1945. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 15 7/8 × 20 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.1998.8.50

INSTALLATION PHOTOS

Eastern Front – Western Front

World War II Photojournalism by Georgi Zelma and Constance Stuart Larrabee

American University Museum

February 4 – March 19, 2023

Top row (lt-rt): Contact sheet, South African soldiers, Egypt 1944; Libertas magazine (March 1945); contact sheet, France 1944; contact sheet, France 1944; field notes with censor’s stamp.

Bottom row (lt-rt): CSL student ID card, Germany 1935; Soldier’s paybook; CSL South Africa Department of Defence ID card; contact sheet, France 1944; Creative Camera (July/August 1985); prints, France 1944.

Top row (lt-rt): Contact sheet, South African soldiers, Italy 1944-45; Libertas magazine (February 1945); contact sheet, Italy 1944-45; film negatives and prints 1944.

Bottom row (lt-rt): Field notes with censor’s marks 1944; contact sheet, France 1944; FFI (Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur) armband; War correspondent epaulets; field notes with censor’s marks 1944; contact sheet France 1944; Exhibition invitation, South Africa 1945.

Courtesy of Constance Stuart Larrabee Archives, Special Collections, George Washington University.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WWII HISTORY AND PHOTOJOURNALISM

Bishop, Chris and Chris McNab eds., History of World War II. (London, UK: Amber Books) 2019.

Franlin, Frances ed., The Indelible Image, Photographs of War, 1846 to the Present. (NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. with The Corcoran Gallery of Art) 1985.

Goldberg, Vicki, Margaret Bourke-White, a Biography. (NY: Harper & Row) 1986.

Imperial War Museums website, https://www.iwm.org.uk. Accessed 12/12/2022.

Kennel, Sarah with Diane Waggoner and Alice Carver-Kubik, In the Darkroom, An Illustrated Guide to Photographic Processes before the Digital Age. (NY: Thames & Hudson with the National Gallery of Art) 2009.

Moseley, Ray, Reporting War. (New Haven: Yale University Press) 2017.

Roberts, Hilary, Lee Miller, a Woman’s War (UK: Thames & Hudson) 2015.

Rosenblum, Naomi, A World History of Photography, 5th edition (NY: Abbeville Press) 1984, 1989, 1997, 2007, 2019.

Scherman, David E. and Anthony Penrose ed., Lee Miller’s War (NY: Little, Brown) 1992.

Smithsonian, The Definitive Visual History of World War II (NY: DK Publishing) 2009, 2016.

Tucker, Anne Wilkes, Will Michels and Natalie Zelt eds, War/Photography, Images of Conflict and its Aftermath. (New Haven: Yale University Press with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston) ex cat. 2012.

CONSTANCE STUART LARRABEE

Bernstein, Adam, “Photographer Constance Larrabee.” The Washington Post, obituary, August 4, 2000.

“Constance Larrabee’s War,” NPR interview, 1989. Available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paGcrb2ZNLE. Accessed December 6, 2022.

Constance Stuart Larrabee Archives (1936-1946), Special Collections Research Center, Gelman Library, George Washington University.

Constance Stuart Larrabee, WWII Photo Journal. (Washington DC: National Museum of Women in the Arts) 1989 ex cat.

Elliott, Peter, Constance: One Road to Take (The Life and Photography of Constance Stuart Larrabee (1914-2000). (Alairac, FR: Cantaloup Press) 2018.

James, Cyril, “Girl at the Front,” Union Jack, February 20, 1945, 2. Rosenblum, Naomi, A History of Women Photographers, 3rd edition (NY: Abbeville Press) 1994, 2000, 2010.

Saxon, Wolfgang, “Constance Stuart Larrabee, 85, Photographer,” New York Times, obituary, August 4, 2000. C19.

GEORGI A. ZELMA

Aperture 116 “Photostroika: New Soviet Photography,” (Fall 1989).

Beevor, Antony, Stalingrad, the Fateful Siege: 1942-1943. (London, UK: Penguin Books) 1998.

Dickerman, Leah, “Camera Obscura: Socialist Realism in the Shadow of Photography,” October 93, No. 3 (2000)

Harrison, Charles and Paul Wood eds., Art in Theory, 1900-1990 (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers) 1992.

Werneke, Jessica, “Reimaging the History of the Avant-Garde: Photography and the Journal Sovetskoe Foto in the 1950s and early 1960s” The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review 44 (2017) 264-291.

Wolf, Erika, “The Context of Early Soviet Photojournalism, 1923-32,” Zimmerli Journal, No. 2 (Fall 2004) 106-117.

First published in conjunction with the exhibition

Eastern Front–Western Front:

World War II Photojournalism by Georgi Zelma and Constance Stuart Larrabee

February 4–March 19, 2023

Curated by Laura Roulet

Featuring Materials from the Corcoran Legacy Collection

American University Museum Project Space

Washington, DC

Published by:

American University Museum

Beth Bright, Registrar

Deborah Hanselman, Associate Director

Kristin E. Howard, Marketing & Publications Specialist

Jack Rasmussen, Director & Curator

Kevin Runyon, Preparator

Aly Schuman, Assistant Registrar

Design by Lloyd Greenberg Design, LLC

Vida Russell and Lloyd Greenberg, Designers

Photography: Greg Staley

© The American University Museum

ISBN: 979-8-9866153-5-6

Parts of this work may be reproduced with attribution for noncommercial and educational or research purposes according to fair use guidelines.

Inside front cover: Georgi Zelma, Hero of the Defense of Stalingrad, August 1942. Vintage gelatin silver print mounted on an envelope, sheet: 4 1/4 × 3 1/8 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Paul and Teresa Harbaugh). 2018.15.2514

Pages 24–25 and 51: Germany. Heer. Generalstab. Stalingrad-Süd. [Berlin, s.n, 1942]

Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002624030/.

Opposite: Constance Stuart Larrabee, Rome, Italy, 1944. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 15 13/16 × 19 15/16 in. Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of the artist, Constance Stuart Larrabee WWII Collection). CGA.1998.8.41

4400 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20016 www.american.edu/cas/museum

The AU Museum Project Space, launched in Summer 2019, is dedicated to working with academics and non-traditional curators to create exhibitions addressing special topics of interest across the university and the greater Washington community.