BMA : Exhibitions : Past Exhibitions : 2003

Capture the Moment: The Pulitzer Prize Photographs
(prize winning photographs from 1940-2000
1 January - 30 March, 2003

Old Glory Goes Up on Mount Suribachi by Joe Rosenthal 2-23-1945 Iwo Jima, South Pacific

"Capture the Moment," featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper photojournalism from 1942 to the present, is from the Freedom Forum's Newseum in Arlington, Va. It is the largest and most comprehensive display of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs shown in the United States and will include the 2002 Pulitzer-winning photograph of the World Trade Center attack taken by New York Times staff member Steve Ludlum.

Other famous photographs in the exhibition include the image of U.S. Marines raising the American Flag at Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, by Joe Rosenthal; "Babe Ruth Retires No. 3," taken by Nathan Fein; the photograph of the backs of John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower at Camp David by Paul Vathis; and Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald, taken by Robert H. Jackson. More current photographs include images of Elian Gonzalez by Alan Diaz and the aftermath of the shooting at Columbine High School by Denver's Rocky Mountain News staff.

Babe Ruth Retires #3 by Nathaniel Fein 6-13-1948 NY, NY

The Pulitzer Prize is named after 19th century-journalist Joseph
Pulitzer, whose work in the New York World and St. Louis Post-Dispatch reshaped the newspaper profession. In his will, Pulitzer established prizes for the fields of journalism, literature, music and drama. The first prizes were awarded in 1917; the award for photography was added in 1942. To be nominated, the photographs must have appeared in a newspaper, and, beginning in 1968, awards were made in two categories: spot news and features.

The exhibition curator is Cyma Rubin, president of Business of
Entertainment Inc. in New York City. She will give a tour/gallery talk at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 9, at the Beach Museum of Art. The presentation is free and the public is invited.

Rubin is an Emmy and Tony award-winning producer, director and writer. In addition to being curator of the Pulitzer Prize photography exhibition, she produced and directed, "Moment of Impact: Stories of Pulitzer Prize Photographs," a television special which aired on Turner Network Television in 1999 and won Emmy and Telly awards for best documentary, also in 1999.

Memorial Day by Anthony Suau 5-31-1983 Denver, CO

She also produced and co-edited the exhibition catalog, "Capture the Moment: The Pulitzer Prize Photographs," which was published by W.W. Norton & Company in 2001. The catalog and documentary video will be for sale at the museum.

"I made the pictures very large so that when you look at them you can understand why the pictures were so great," Rubin said. "My impression is, when that picture was taken, life was in movement and the photographer recorded that moment. Every time I look at a Pulitzer photograph, I see the movement. The photographers have an innate sense of what is happening emotionally and intellectually to the subjects they are photographing. They know how to capture the moment."

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