ONE PHOTOGRAPHER CREATED ESQUIRE’S ICONIC COVERS FROM THE 1960S, BUT YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW HIS NAME (16 Pics)

 

 

The final decline and total collapse of the American avant-garde, May 1969

When people learn that Michael Norseng is the Photo Director at Esquire, it’s not uncommon that they mention one name from the magazine’s eighty-two-year-old history: George Lois, the art director who served at its helm from 1962 until 1972. Although Lois was indeed responsible for many of the ideas behind Esquire’s iconic covers over that decade, it’s another man whose name surfaces when Norseng looks back on those unforgettable covers of Muhammed Ali as Saint Sebastian, Andy Warhol engulfed by his own can of Campbell’s soup, Nixon under the make-up brush, and so many more; for him, it’s the man behind the camera, Carl Fischer, a man of ninety-one who still lives and works out of his townhouse studio on East 83rd Street in Manhattan.

Alongside Lois and then Editor-in-Chief Harold Hayes, Fischer played a part in envisioning many of big concepts that catapulted Esquire to the top of the industry, but he was also the man on the ground, the one working with talent, lighting the scene, and solving various technical conundrums. Despite the role he occupied—and still occupies— within the history of photography, Norseng describes the photographer as exceedingly humble and unassuming.

Sonny Liston, December 1963

Nixon’s last chance (This time, he’d better look right!) May, 1968

The New American Woman: through at 21, February 1967

Kennedy without tears, June 1964

Carl Fischer’s hand, the making of ‘Kennedy without tears’

James Baldwin tells us all how to cool it this summer, June 1968

The making of ‘James Baldwin tells us all how to cool it this summer’

JFK, Robert Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at a cemetery in the 35th anniversary issue, October 1968

The making of the 35th anniversary issue

Campbell’s soup, the making of ‘The final decline and total collapse of the American avant-garde’

Andy Warhol, the making of ‘The final decline and total collapse of the American avant-garde’

The making of ‘The Passion of Muhammad Ali’

The making of ‘The Passion of Muhammad Ali’

The making of ‘The Passion of Muhammad Ali’