Page 2 – LIFE

Dmitri Kessel’s Images of Italy, 1948

October 7, 2025 by Bill Syken

The assignment for Dmitri Kessel was a straightforward one: capture images of Italy getting back to normal after World War II. His photos were part of a larger package showing how the Marshall Plan was helping to rebuild Europe.

LIFE wrote in its 1948 report that, after the brutal war years, Europe was seeing a revival:

From the tip of Italy north to Scapa Flow, American travelers are discovering a surprising new look on the war-scarred face of Western Europe. Buildings are going up, the railroads are running, there is more food and the trade is brisk. In many small Italian villages newly painted homes gleam amidst the old colors of yellow terra cotta…. To Americans, who for a decade have only heard reports of European misery, all this comes as a pleasant shock.

To document this moment of change, Kessel took photos of people enjoying a beach that had been previously unusable because it had been planted with land mines. He showed men working at an Alfa Romeo factory in Milan that had been bombed in 1944, but was nearing its old production levels. Kessel also showed tourists from India and the United States visiting attractions that draw people the world over.

Kessel was not the first LIFE photographer to undertake an assignment like this. The year before, in 1947, Alfred Eisenstadt had also gone to Italy to survey the country’s post-war progress and come home with his own collection of amazing images.

While the scars of World War II were still fresh—one of Kessel’s photos shows workers rebuilding a bridge that had been taken out during the fighting—the country remained photogenic. It’s why LIFE photographers—and tourists (including 60 million in 2024)—keep making Italy one of the most visited countries in the world.

Scenes around Italy from a story about the country starting to bounce back from World War II, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This Italian beach, which had been planted with landmines during World War II, was now safe for public use, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

People danced on the terrace of an Italian beach as the country began to bounce back from World War II, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A man and woman conversed at an Italian beach, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Scenes around Italy from a story about the country starting to bounce back from World War II, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

People in Rome sunbathed and swawm at the Tiber boathouse, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Men played checkers by the water in Italy, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Scenes around Italy from a story about the country starting to bounce back from World War II, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Children played cards on the street in Italy, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Scenes around Italy from a story about the country starting to bounce back from World War II, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

People harvested grain in Italy, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A team of four oxen pulled a harvester over an oat field in Italy, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Factory workers in Italy, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Alfa Romeo plant in Milan, Italy, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Two newly assembled Alfa Romeos were checked over at the company factory in Milan, Italy, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Scenes around Italy from a story about the country starting to bounce back from World War II, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

American sightseers at St. Peter’s in Rome, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Tourists posed at the Colosseum in Rome, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Scenes around Italy from a story about the country starting to bounce back from World War II, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Workers reconstructed a bridge over the Po River as Italy began to bounce back from World War II, 1948.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

LIFE’s Favorite Photos of America’s Harvesters

September 30, 2025 by Bill Syken

America has a lot going for it, and the ability to feed itself would be at the top of the list. The country is rich in arable farmland.

This important truth is one that suffuses this collection of harvest-time photos taken during LIFE’s original run from 1936 to 1972. The crops being harvested in these photos include corn, wheat, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, celery, grapes, peaches, squash and watermelon. It’s a veritable cornucopia.

(The photographers at work here are a bumper crop too, including LIFE staffers Margaret Bourke-White, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Joe Scherschel, Wallace Kirkland and many others).

It’s worth noting that much has changed about America’s farms since these photos were taken, with the family farm giving way to large-scale agribusiness. According to data from the U.S Department of Agriculture, the number of farms in the United States reached their peak in 1935, at around 7 million. Then came a period of rapid decline, with the total hitting 2 million by the 1970s before leveling off some. The total acreage of farmland didn’t change that much, though, because while the number of farms decreased, their size multiplied.

LIFE was very much aware of this change as it was happening, and worried that it was bad for the country. The magazine fretted in 1948 that the decline of the family farm might also signal the decline of the American family, as families stopped focussing on joint enterprises and its members pursued their individual interests instead. Some of the warmest and most nostalgic images in this collection are those of community, showing people working in unison or taking a break to enjoy a communal meal—with members of a found family, if not an actual one.

Not much is known about the particular farms or farmers in most of these images, though some of the photos, by Michael Rougier, were taken for a story about migrant workers. In all cases, through, there is a connection to the land, and reminder of what it takes for Americans to get their fruits and vegetables.

Harvesters hitchhiked to a wheat harvesting, Oklahoma, 1942.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Farm workers harvested onions, Burbank, California, 1952.

Margaret Bourke-White/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Wheat harvest, Texas, 1949.

Joe Scherschel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Scene from a New Hampshire apple harvest, 1963.

Leonard McCombe/Life Picture Collection/Shiutterstock

An Illinois watermelon harvest, 1946.

Wallace Kirkland/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Nebraska corn harvesters, 1944.

Photo by Wallace Kirkland

Child playing with corn on the farm, Nebraska, 1944.

Wallace Kirkland/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Nebraska corn harvest, 1944.

Wallace Kirkland/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Migrant workers harvesting potatoes, 1959.

Michael Rougier The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Migrant farm workers harvested celery in California, 1959.

Michael Rougier The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Workers harvesting watermelons in the Imperial Valley, California, 1947.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Migrant workers harvesting watermelons in the Imperial Valley, California, 1947.

Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Celery harvesting in Florida, 1951.

Howard Sochurek/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Peach harvest, 1946.

Wallace Kirkland/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A view of a man unloading bushels of freshly-harvested tomatoes at a produce market in Michigan, 1946

Wallace Kirkland/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Harvesting Boston marrow squash at Seabrook Farms in New Jersey, 1954.

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collectioh/Shutterstock

Women inspecting and checking beans at the Seabrook Farms in New Jersey, 1954.

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Seabrook Farms in New Jersey, 1954.

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Harvest farm hands ate lunch served by their wives in kitchen of a farmhouse, Wichita, Kansas, 1954.

Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Farmers had lunch brought and served by their wives as they paused briefly during harvest of Springer wheat, Minnesota, 1943

Gordon Coster/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

The Mona Lisa’s One and Only Visit to America

September 24, 2025 by Bill Syken

For a few weeks in 1963, Americans could see the Mona Lisa without having to go to the Louvre.

That’s because the Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece crossed the Atlantic ocean by boat for a one-of-a-kind visit to the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This was the only time the painting came to the Americas, and likely the only time it ever will. The only other occasions on which the Mona Lisa has left France were in 1911, when it was stolen by an Italian museum worker and briefly taken to Italy, and in 1974, when the painting traveled for exhibitions in Japan and Russia.

How did the U.S. visit even come about? Credit First Lady (and LIFE magazine favorite) Jacqueline Kennedy, who spoke French fluently and made the request in person to Andre Malraux, the French minister of cultural affairs, during a dinner at the White House. According to Margaret Leslie Davis’s book Mona Lisa in Camelot, Jackie Kennedy wanted the painting to come to America because she “saw the exhibition as an unmatched opportunity to burnish the American image at home and abroad, and [as] a convincing emblem of friendship between France and the U.S. It was a well-chosen gesture of amity, goodwill, and fervent diplomacy.”

The plan to send the Mona Lisa to America was not popular in France, with art experts calling the idea “insane” and “deadly.” They worried that harm would come to this famous and fragile work of art, which was painted in 1503, either because of accidental damage or an act of terror.

French officials did everything they could to make sure Mona Lisa’s journey was a safe one. Here’s how LIFE described the painting’s journey from Paris to Washington in December 1962.

Surrounded by grandeur that would have done credit to Charles de Gaulle, she had travelled on the S.S. France in a deluxe suite that would have cost an ordinary passenger $2,000. Day and night four guards and three museum officials hovered around to check her temperature and see that her wraps didn’t slip off….She was spirited into an air-conditioned van on a New York dock and whisked to the National Gallery in Washington.

The trip from New York to Washington apparently included the van making a stop at a roadside filling station—probably the nearest the Mona Lisa has ever been to a five-cent hot dog. The photo of the van at the filling station is one of many shot by LIFE’s John Loengard, who documented the van journey and of a press viewing in Washington D.C. The painting was exhibited in Washington for three weeks in January 1963, when it was seen by more than a half-million visitors, who waited up to two hours in line for their glimpse of it. Then the painting returned back up to New York, where LIFE’s Ralph Morse took some more photos of the masterpiece on its way to the Met.

After nearly a month in New York, the Mona Lisa returned to France looking no worse for wear.

A French security guard with the crated ‘Mona Lisa’ painting in the state room of a French liner enroute to the US for an exhibit. 1962.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Mona Lisa was transported by van from New York to Washington D.C. during its U.S. visit in 1962.

John Loengard/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

During a visit to New York and Washington D.C.. in 1963, the Mona Lisa made the trip by van, 1962.

John Loengard/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Mona Lisa (inside its transport crate) came to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., 1962.

John Loengard/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Mona Lisa at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., 1963.

John Loengard/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The press at the visit of the Mona Lisa to Washington D.C., 1963.

John Loengard/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A security guard kept its eye on the Mona Lisa during its visit to the National Gallery of Art, 1963.

John Loengard/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Mona Lisa at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., 1963.

John Loengard/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Mona Lisa, on a goodwill trip from France, arrived in New York City in a protective box, 1963.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Mona Lisa, on loan from France, hung in a vault at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., 1963.

John Leongard/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Meet Three-Time LIFE Cover Model Elsa Martinelli

September 22, 2025 by Bill Syken

Elsa Martinelli had three things going for her. That was the analysis of LIFE magazine when she was introduced to readers on the cover of a 1957 issue as “a triple-threat Italian beauty.”

One of her chief assets was her was looks, wrote LIFE. Another was her flair for fashion. The third was her acting ability. And indeed in 1957 Martinelli was at the beginning of a long screen career in which she would play the female lead in the relatively minor works of some major movie stars, including Robert Mitchum, John Wayne and Kirk Douglas.

After her 1957 debut Martinelli was back on the cover in 1962 modeling “a toga to shed before going to bed,” and again in 1963 for a report on new fashions from Paris.

She also spent some time in front of a LIFE camera for a story that never ran in the magazine but produced some charming images. In 1964 photographer Carlo Bavagnoli followed Martinelli as she rode around Paris on a motorbike—it looks like a Honda CZ100, the first minibike sold to consumers. In her day Martinelli was often talked about as Italy’s answer to Audrey Hepburn, and the resemblance is prominent as she scoots about the City of Lights in a manner that calls to mind the playful spirit that Hepburn showed when she gadded about a different European capital in the cinema classic Roman Holiday.

Martinelli is of course smartly dressed in these photos and they also benefit from the flavor of Paris, especially when the Champs Elysées looms in the background.

Also included in this gallery are several shots of Martinelli by another LIFE photographer, Ralph Crane. These give a glimpse of what this cover model looked like in living color.

Elsa Martinelli rode a motorbike in Paris, 1964.

Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Portrait of actress Elsa Martinelli, 1960.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Devil You Don’t Know: Fashion Editor Carmel Snow

September 17, 2025 by Bill Syken

The archetype of the powerful fashion editor was cemented in popular culture by the book and subsequent movie The Devil Wears Prada, which featured a character who was named Miranda Priestly but was inspired by legendary Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

While none of her former assistants wrote thinly veiled novels about her, Carmel Snow was the Miranda Priestly of an earlier era. Snow led the fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar for nearly a quarter century, from 1934 to 1958. If her name doesn’t sound familiar, it’s because the idea of an iconic magazine editor was a relatively new one back in her day. In a 2005 biography about Snow titled A Dash of Daring, fashion photographer Richard Avedon talked about why Snow wasn’t more of a household name. “She was older, right?” he said. “And she died before stardom was the thing.”

But Snow was enough of a power player that LIFE photographer Walter Sanders made her the subject of a photo essay which, viewed today, looks like storyboards for The Devil Wears Prada (minus the focus on the assistants, who remain unidentified). But other fashion stars who show up in the frames include Cristobal Balenciaga and Coco Chanel (in some photos wearing scene-stealing headwear). Another notable figure in the images is Diane Vreeland, who worked under Snow at Harper’s Bazaar and would later become editor-in-chief at Vogue. If today Vreeland’s name resonates somewhat more than Snow, it’s both because she is more recent and her platform, Vogue, has only gained in prominence relative to Harper’s Bazaar.

And, not to oversell the importance of LIFE, but it didn’t help that Sanders’ photos of Carmel Snow were shot for a story that never ran.

Carmel Snow, editor of Harper’s Bazaar, met with Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, 1952.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Carmel Snow, editor of Harper’s Bazaar, met with Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, 1953.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Carmel Snow, editor of Harper’s Bazaar, met with Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, 1952.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Carmel Snow (center), editor of Harper’s Bazaar, and the magazine’s fashion editor, Diane Vreeland (left), at work in the magazine’s offices, 1952.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Carmel Snow (left), editor of Harper’s Bazaar, and the magazine’s fashion editor, Diane Vreeland (right), at work in the magazine’s offices, 1952.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Carmel Snow (center), editor of Harper’s Bazaar, at work in her office, 1952.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Carmel Snow. (seated at desk), editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar, worked on the layout of an upcoming issue, 1952.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Carmel Snow, editor of Harper’s Bazaar, works on an upcoming issue, 1952.

Man holding a newspaper beside Carmel Snow, December 1952

Carmel Snow, editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar, works on an upcoming issue, 1952.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Carmel Snow (second from left), editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar, at work with designer Cristobal Balenciaga (second from right), 1952.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Fashion designer Cristobal Balenciaga and Carmel Snow, editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar, looked at a model during fashion designers meeting, December 1952.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Fashion designer Cristobal Balenciaga and Carmel Snow, editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar, shopped together in New York City, 1952.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Fashion designer Cristobal Balenciaga pointed out something to Carmel Snow, editor of Harper’s Bazaar in an unidentified shop in New York City, 1952.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

When the Movies Got Smaller

September 15, 2025 by Bill Syken

One of the most famous lines in the 1950 cinema classic Sunset Boulevard is uttered by actress Gloria Swanson, who starred as former silent film star Norma Desmond. When the male lead, played by William Holden, meets her and recognizes her as a former movie queen, he comments, “You used to be big.” She responds, “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”

So it was fitting that Swanson came by to pose for a photo when the Roxy movie theater was being demolished in 1960. The Roxy was the largest movie theater in the world when it opened in 1927, and it could seat about 6,000 people. With the Roxy being torn down, now the movie houses were getting smaller.

Beyond the poetic resonance, Swanson also had a direct connection to history of the Roxy. Her silent film The Love of Sunya was the first movie to play there, and she was in the audience for the film’s premiere, and had carved her name into the theater’s dome.

When Swanson returned for the demolition, she played to the drama of the moment for a photo by LIFE staff photographer Eliot Elisofon. The magazine’s story, headlined “Swan Song For a Famous Theater” was a short one but captured Swanson, then 61 years old, playing the role of movie star to the hilt:

The famous theater, its day done, is now being torn down, and last month Miss Swanson came back for a last look at the ruins. A wry and witty woman, she remarked, “Wherever I go I hear people saying `Is it” or “Isn’t it?’ and once I heard a man say, “It is. It is the original. ‘” When, gowned in a Jean Louis sheath, a feathery boa and $170,000 in jewels, she swept up to the Roxy in a Rolls Royce, crowds gathered and she could hear again, “Is it, or isn’t it.?” Perhaps she also heard the man who said loudly, “It is, and it’s looking better than ever.”

The Roxy, which cost about $12 million to build back in 1927—that’s more than $200 million in today’s dollars—was more than a movie theater. The space also hosted big stage shows, which meant that it had dressing rooms, rehearsal rooms, and a pipe organ. Also included was an infirmary and a menagerie to accommodate animal performers.

In addition to the photos that Elisofon took of Swanson, this collection also includes a couple photos of the Roxy’s demolition taken by another LIFE staff photographer, Ralph Morse. The Roxy may have had a special place in the hearts of people who worked at LIFE magazine because the theater was located at 153 W. 50th Street, which is just down the block from the old Time-Life building, where the magazine was headquartered. So it’s likely that LIFE staffers caught many shows there, perhaps even sneaking out of the office for an afternoon movie break.

The demolition meant goodbye to all that.

Actress Gloria Swanson posed on the site of old Roxy Theater in New York as it was being destroyed. Her silent movie The Love of Sunya was the first movie to play at the Roxy when it opened in 1927.

Eliot Elisofon/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gloria Swanson arrived to pose at the Roxy theater as it was being town down, 1960.

Eliot Elisofon/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gloria Swanson posed at the Roxy theater as it was being town down, New York City, 1960.

Eliot Elisofon/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gloria Swanson posed at the Roxy, once the largest movie theater in the world, as it was being town down, New York City, 1960.

Eliot Elisofon/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock