LARRY BURROWS – REVISITED
2018-06-25When the opportunity to cover the Vietnam War arose, Burrows was ready. He went there in 1962, and as David Halberstam says in his introduction to the book Larry Burrows Vietnam, “From the start, the best photos from Vietnam were his. He had a feel for the war and the people fighting it … and he understood that … this was the ultimate assignment, demanding the ultimate risk.” Many Burrows images were incorporated into Ken Burns’ recent documentary VIETNAM.
Burrows’ best-known series is One Ride with Yankee Papa 13, which LIFE published across 14 pages in 1965. From the opening spread, where a young, confident James Farley is introduced before a mission to airlift an infantry battalion, to its bloody sequence on the ensuing firefight and failed rescue, to Farley’s emotional return to base, the essay captures the universal humanity of man embroiled in the inhumanity of war. Burrows covered the war until 1971, when the helicopter in which he was riding to photograph the invasion of Laos was shot down, killing all aboard.
Opposite – “Puff the Magic Dragon”. Mekong Delta, 1966
Exhibition runs through to June 29th, 2018
Laurence Miller Gallery
521 West 26th Street
5th floor
New York
10001 NY
