On 5 June 1968, at the end of the banquet that closed the presidential election primaries for the Democratic Party, Robert F. Kennedy, brother of the President who was assassinated in November 1963, was assassinated in Los Angeles. In the country there was enormous commotion to the extent that, faced with suspicions that the mafia had been involved or that the murder had taken place for political reasons,people began to talk about the curse of the Kennedys. The senator’s body was transported in a special train from California to New York where it rested for two days in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral as a vast multitude filed by to pay their respects. Paul Fusco, a photographer from the Magnum agency, boarded the funeral train and, during the journey, photographed the citizens who thronged the station platforms along the route to pay tribute to the immensely popular politician. America’s heartland captured through its flags, its children and its veterans. A unique portrait of the country. And subtle flowing colours, with no effects, that stand as an exemplary document.
Paul was born in Massachusetts in 1930. He studied Journalism at the University of Ohio and, in 1957, graduated in Fine Arts. In 1974 he became a member of the Magnum agency. His work has been published in journals that include LIFE, Time, Newsweek, The Sunday Times and Paris Match and has been shown in museums such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Recently, the latter institution acquired six photographs from the Funeral Train series.
FESTIVAL
GETXOPhoto Photography Festival
From September 3rd to October 4th, 2015
Getxo, Spain
