PIX Publishing was an early New York City photo bureau which followed European, particularly German, precedents. From 1935 to 1969 it supplied news and feature photos to magazines, especially LIFE and, later, Sports Illustrated.
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Formation
The agency was founded in New York at 250 Park Avenue in November 1935 by Leon Daniel and Celia Kutschuk. Born in the Ukraine, Kutschuk had studied photojournalism at the Rhine University, and both had worked as picture editors at the Associated Press Berlin which was headed by American, Louis Lochner from 1928 until 1941, when Germany and US declared war and Lochner was held and then deported as an enemy alien. Jewish employees were sacked, and many fled Europe.
European roots
PIX acted as an intermediary between émigré photographers and the American magazine and newspaper market, profiting from the development of photojournalism in the USA in the 1930s onwards. As many of the photographers for PIX were naturalized American citizens, they were not allowed in the war theaters during WWII, so they stayed home and covered the home front, though during the Korean War and Cold War, Ed Feingersh produced striking reportage.
The photographers
The founding photographers of the agency were Alfred Eisenstaedt and Georg Karger. Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898–1995) was the best-known photographer with PIX and until the 1950s credited his work to PIX Publishing. He left PIX about 1957 over a royalty disagreement. Robert and Cornell Capa were also briefly associated with PIX (Cornell Capa worked as a printer in the laboratory). German George Karger (1909–1982?) left banking for a career in stage photography. Jerry Cooke (b. Yuri Kutschuk, 1922–2005) was the nephew of Celia Kutschuk and initially worked in the agency darkroom before becoming a photographer and producing work for LIFE, Fortune, Collier's, Time, Sports Illustrated and European publications.
Eileen Darby (Lester) (1916 – April 21, 2004) worked in the PIX laboratory from 1937, in the same way as Cornell Capa, but from 1939 started photographing for the agency, which sent her on theatrical assignments, since players and producers were used to female photographers, and she subsequently founded her own agency Graphic House in 1941. Other PIX photographers included Hans Knopf (1907–1967), Ed Feingersh, Bob Schwalberg, Larry Fried, Bob Henriquez, Garry Winogrand, and George Zimbel.
Cessation
PIX was dissolved in 1969 with the rise of television which displaced the big picture magazines.
Legacy
An archive of PIX photos was amassed by Emil J. Klinsky (1899–?), the bulk of which is now at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), and the remainder at Spaarnestad Photo in The Hague, the Netherlands.