Written By: Ben Cosgrove
Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898-1995), the man behind some of the most memorable pictures of the 20th century, was a professional photographer for almost 70 years. He started working in photography in Weimar Germany in the 1920s. Having fled Nazi Germany in the mid-’30s, he shot for LIFE magazine from its debut in 1936 until it ceased publishing as a weekly in 1972. After LIFE was shuttered, Eisenstaedt kept photographing until the mid-1990s.
Small in stature, dapper, indefatigable “I cannot believe that any photographer today works as much as I worked in the past,” he told an interviewer in 1993. “Eisie” traveled the world, making indelible portraits of famous people and places, infamous scoundrels and anonymous (but, through his lens, immortalized) men, women and children.
“Eisenstaedt never lost his childlike interest in things and people, in what made them what they were,” Robert Andreas wrote in the 2004 book, The Great LIFE Photographers. “He would put his subjects at ease, then get up close and take a few pictures he didn’t need roll after roll then it was on to the next person, the next happening, tirelessly pursuing the heart of the matter that he saw so easily and wanted very much for us to see too.”
Here LIFE.com celebrates “this little fellow from Germany” (Andreas again) with pictures culled from the hundreds of thousands of photos he shot through the years. Some of them are among photography’s most widely recognized, most frequently reproduced images. A few of them might be pictures that you’ve never seen before. But all of them share the unmistakable, deeply humane sensibility that defined the very best work of the man who made them.
Prints of many of Eisenstaedt’s masterworks are available for purchase in the LIFE photo store, with his portraits of Marilyn Monroe being among the top sellers. Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.
Skating Waiter_IRC
Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
La Scala, Milan, 1934.
Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
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Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Model Janet MacLeod wearing a veiled hat designed by Lilly DachÂŽ, 1937.
Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
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Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
NURSES TRAINING
Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Construction on Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, 1940, a year before its completion.
Alfred EisenstaedtThe LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation
Pennsylvania Station, New York, 1943.
Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
VJ DAY
Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mother and child in Hiroshima, Japan, December 1945.
Alfred Eisenstaedt; The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Trees_IC
Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
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Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
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Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
WINSTON CHURCHILL
Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Ernest Hemingway, 1952.
Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Marilyn Monroe on the patio of her home, 1953.
Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Sen. John F. Kennedy and his daughter Caroline at home after the Democratic Party named him their 1960 presidential candidate, 1960.
Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Jackie Kennedy reads to daughter Caroline, Hyannis Port, 1960.
Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Children watch the story of “Saint George and the Dragon” at an outdoor puppet theater in Paris, 1963.
Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Sophia Loren on set of the movie, Marriage Italian Style, 1964.
Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
THOMAS HART BENTON
Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
