The photojournalist Ed Clark (1911-2000) has slipped below the radar despite having worked continuously from the 1930s to the early ‘60s. He worked primarily for Life magazine and, ironically, his all-round proficiency and prolificacy has eclipsed his achievement in showing how a part of America saw itself.
Editorial policy dictated his assignments but how stories came to be photographed was down to him. His empathies accorded with many of the readers who turned the pages of a magazine that was regularly selling six million copies a week throughout the 1950s. By the early 1960s, by which time 90% of readers had a television in their home, Life’s declining budget and his deteriorating eyesight brought Clark’s career to an end.