Lawrence Fried

Lawrence Fried (1926-1983) was an award-winning photojournalist, capturing political, social, and artistic events for top publications like Look, Life, The New York Times, The Saturday Evening Post, Vogue, and Parade Magazine. During the 1950s and 1960s, he was the most successful photographer at PIX, Inc., and by the early 1970s had photographed the most Newsweek covers.

After World War II, Fried, a New York City native, immersed himself in theatre photography, capturing luminaries such as Billy Wilder, Marlene Dietrich, and Ingrid Bergman. He created iconic images of stars like Audrey Hepburn, James Dean, and Meryl Streep, as well as notable musicians and artists such as Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Norman Rockwell. Recently discovered photographs include an unpublished 1965 story on Andy Warhol.

Fried covered the Vietnam War and worked as a travel photographer, capturing world leaders like Chiang Kai-shek and John F. Kennedy. Favoured by the Kennedys, Fried’s image of Robert F. Kennedy was chosen for the cover of his book, To Seek A Newer World, and his photograph of a mourning Jacqueline Kennedy is in the Smithsonian Institution’s permanent collection.

As president of the American Society of Magazine Photographers and co-founder of The Image Bank, Fried championed photographers’ rights with friends like Jay Maisel and Pete Turner. Despite his early death, his daughters, Lauren Fried Wendle and Patricia Fried, have uncovered and are archiving a rich collection of his original prints.