The former home of legendary photographer Elliot Erwitt who recently passed away is on the market with listing photos showing his home studio.
Erwitt was a titan of photography famed for his photos of dogs he met on the street and he had an illustrious career in photojournalism capturing celebrities and politicians.
His former home in East Hampton on Long Island, New York contains items that reflect the photographer’s famous sense of humor. The home studio he kept has a white backdrop as well as a smaller one for product shots complete with lights hanging on sliding rails.
Some of Erwitt’s photography is on display throughout the house including The California Kiss taken in 1955 in Santa Monica which hangs over the bar. And Sammy at the Beach, which was taken in East Hampton in 1998, is also displayed in the house.
The 3,500-square-foot home has four bedrooms, four bathrooms, two fireplaces and floor-to-ceiling windows.
The idiosyncratic objects include two Japanese police mannequins which Erwitt installed to scare drivers into slowing down.
“Elliott always had quirky things like this in and around his house,” Erwitt’s son-in-law Rick Smolan tells The New York Post. Smolan is also a photographer and married to Jennifer Erwitt.
Erwitt was born Elio Romano Erwitt in Paris on July 26th, 1928, to Jewish-Russian parents. He spent his childhood in Milan, Italy, then emigrated to the United States with his family in 1939 when he was ten years old. In 1953 he joined Magnum Photos as a freelancer photographer and served as Magnum’s president for three years in the late 1960s
“Very often… I would take pictures with just the joy of taking pictures, for no specific reason and no client and just for my interest,” he told PetaPixel.
“You may not even know that you have a good picture unless you take a look. Taking pictures is a response to what you see and what you think you see. And it’s very easy not to respond to the quality of the image you shot until you see it in a different circumstance.”
The listing broker is Jennifer Wilson of Saunders & Associates.
Image credits: Saunders.