Guy Gillette

Guy Gillette (October 22, 1922 – August 19, 2013) was an American photographer and photojournalist of the second half of the 20th century whose work attracted national attention beginning with the 1955 exhibit The Family of Man at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. His prints have appeared in such magazines and newspapers as Life magazine, Fortune, Harper's Bazaar, and The New York Times.

Life and career

Gillette was born on October 22, 1922, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Growing up, he traveled a lot due to his father's occupation. He initially wanted to be an actor and moved to New York to pursue the stage. In New York, he studied with Michael Chekhov a celebrated Russian-American theatre practitioner, actor, and director. He was in several Broadway plays while the family lived in Staten Island and also in Yonkers.

To pay bills, Gillette worked as a busboy at a vegetarian diner. While working at the diner, he met Doris Porter, an aspiring fashion designer from Lovelady, Texas, supporting herself waiting tables. The two fell in love and married. They traveled regularly to Porter family's ranch, located outside the small town of Crockett, Texas, where he began to photograph the Porter family and their land, as a hobby. Those black-and-white photographs from the 1940s became popular among his friends and he was encouraged to take up photography professionally. Noted American photographer and curator of the Museum of Modern Art Edward Steichen chose two of the photographs to be featured in his 1955 exhibition named "The Family of Man." The exhibit traveled all around the world and featured the works of several photographers from many different countries, including Ansel Adams, Eve Arnold, Richard Avedon, Lou Bernstein, Mathew Brady, Paul Berg, Shirley Burden, David Douglas Duncan, and Nell Dorr. The title, "The Family of Man," was taken from a line in a Carl Sandburg poem.

Throughout the rest of his lengthy photography career, Gillette worked as a freelance photographer. Over the years, he had photographed such known and influential figures as singer Elvis Presley, author/actress Jacqueline Susann, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, actress Audrey Hepburn, Queen of the UK Elizabeth II, dancer/choreographer Agnes de Mille, jazz singer Sarah Vaughan, singer Marian Anderson, and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. 

In August 2013, Texas singer/songwriter/poet Andy Wilkinson published a coffee table book with Gillette's photographs, titled A Family of the Land: The Texas Photography of Guy Gillette Folklorist. J. Frank Dobie said of Gillette, "You are in the photographic business and a master of it".

When asked what photography meant to him, Gillette said, "I do not look for exceptional subjects. I avoid them, ... I think it is daily life that is the great event, the true reality.... It is why I have enjoyed watching the people of Houston County, seeing them through a camera's viewfinder." On famed Spanish artist Salvador Dali, he said, "I thought Dali was a bore. Always trying to look deadpan. He sought to eliminate all emotion from his public façade. I remember he flirted a great deal with the woman who was writing his profile, saying she reminded him of a Northern Italian blonde. He refused to speak English to us, even though he spoke some. Neither the writer nor I came away very happy with him."

Gillette remains in demand through his images, many of which are black-and-white prints. His photography has been exhibited through the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers and the Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Personal life

Gillette was married to his wife Doris Porter, whom he met while working at a restaurant in New York. They had two sons—Guy Porter Gillette (1945–2013) and William Pipp Gillette (born 1946).

Death

Gillette died of a heart attack on August 19, 2013, at the age of 90, in Houston County, Texas.