Edward Wallowitch (May 5, 1932 – March 25, 1981) was an American art photographer who at age 17 had three prints in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the youngest photographer to be so honored, and who collaborated with Andy Warhol. He was active from the 1940s to the 1970s.
Biography
Edward Wallowitch was born on 5 May 1932 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States. His parents ran a delicatessen and both sides of the family descended from late nineteenth century Lithuanian immigrants.
Edward began taking photos when he was eleven and by 1949 his pictures, two made with a Kodak Brownie while he was still at school, were purchased for the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. One was included in Photographs by 51 Photographers, August 1–September 17, 1950 at the Museum, and others in its Christmas Photographs, November 29, 1951 – January 6, 1952.
During 1953/4, Wallowitch photographed for the Philadelphia Housing Association which maintained that housing problems and poor polities were intimately related to the City's social conditions and was making a comprehensive longitudinal documentation of poor living conditions and sanitary problems. Wallowitch's contributions represent the nascence of an ongoing subject matter in his work; children, as indicated in the titles of those in the Housing Association of Delaware Valley Records held in Temple University Library, for example, 'Coleman Children: 914 W. Master Street (S.W. Temple Redevelopment Area; Now Demolished) 12 Photos. April, 1954, Girl, Vicinity Of 10th & Master Street. April, 1954, Boys, Vicinity Of 10th & Master Streets. April, 1954.
New York
Wallowitch and two of his three siblings, John and Anna Mae began their careers in New York City's Greenwich Village in the mid-1950s. Edward's brother studied music at the Juilliard and his first album This Is John Wallowitch!!! (1964) featured cover art by Andy Warhol. Their sister posed for Warhol and acted for a time as his agent. Warhol and Edward formed a relationship, both personal (Andy called Edward his ‘first boyfriend’) and artistic; it is likely that the photos on which Warhol's album cover art is based are by Edward, though he is not given credit. They attended parties together and photographed the guests, a practice Andy continued at Studio 54 and at The Factory.
Robert Heide describes the brothers’ rich cultural milieu:
Wallowitch was among the photographers who exhibited at Helen Gee's Limelight gallery, then the only photography gallery in New York.
Of Edward's photographs of children and teenagers in the grimy urban landscape, two were chosen by Edward Steichen for the world-touring Museum of Modern Art exhibition The Family of Man, seen by 9 million visitors during the 1950s and '60s. In one, a little boy hides his face inside the oversize suit jacket worn by an older boy, presumably his brother, who peers wryly at the camera. It is clear, as evidenced in the series from which the picture comes, that Wallowitch was adept at gaining the confidence of his young subjects. In other shots the two boys pose with others on the steps of a drug store, and in one instance a starling perches on the shoulder of the street-smart older boy who, with a straw in his mouth, peers at it with raised eyebrow from under his carefully brylcreemed quiff. Wallowitch's other picture selected pans with slow shutter speed on a little girl in a white dress who passes discarded paper wrapping as she runs; the blurred image results in the paper merging with her light-toned clothing and reads as an angel's wings. Wallowitch was the youngest contributing photographer to The Family of Man.
In 1956 Wallowitch's pictures of children's’ chalk drawings traced from shadows on the pavement were featured in Design magazine and in Life in 1957.