- John Vachon
Infobox Artist
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name = John Vachon
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caption = Vachon in 1942
birthname =
birthdate =May 19 1914
location =Saint Paul, Minnesota , USA
deathdate =April 20 1975
deathplace =New York City , USA
nationality = American
field =Photography
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awards =John F. Vachon (
19 May 1914 –20 April 1975 ) was an Americanphotographer . He worked as a filing clerk for theFarm Security Administration beforeRoy Stryker recruited him to join a small group of photographers, includingEsther Bubley ,Marjory Collins ,Mary Post Wolcott ,Jack Delano ,Arthur Rothstein ,Walker Evans , Russell Lee,Gordon Parks ,Charlotte Brooks ,Carl Mydans ,Dorothea Lange andBen Shahn , were employed to publicize the conditions of the rural poor in America.Family and education
Vachon was born in
Saint Paul, Minnesota . He graduated from Cretin High School (nowCretin-Derham Hall High School ). He received a bachelors degree in 1934 from the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, then named St. Thomas College. In about 1938 he married Millicent Leeper who was known as Penny. She died in 1960. Vachon married Françoise Fourestier in 1961. Vachon served in theUnited States Army in 1945.cite web|author=Vachon, John. Prepared by Connie L. Cartledge|title=John Vachon: A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress|url=http://www.loc.gov/rr/mss/text/vachon.html|publisher=Manuscript Division, Library of Congress|date=2006|accessdate=2007-10-10]Vachon's daughter,
Christine Vachon , is a noted independentfilm producer .Later years
John Vachon's first job at the Farm Security Administration carried the title "assistant messenger." He was twenty-one, and had come to Washington from his native
Minnesota to attendThe Catholic University of America . Vachon had no intention of becoming a photographer when he took the position in 1936, but as his responsibilities increased for maintaining the FSA photographic file, his interest in photography grew.cite web|title=Omaha, in Photographs from the FSA and OWI, Documenting America, Chapter 2|url=http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fachap02.html|publisher=The Library of Congress, from Fleischhauer, Carl and Brannan, Beverly (eds.). Documenting America, 1935-1943. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988|date=15 December 1998 |accessdate=2007-10-20]By 1937 Vachon had looked enough to want to make photographs himself, and with advice from Ben Shahn he tried out a
Leica in and around Washington. His weekend photographs of "everything in thePotomac River valley" were clearly the work of a beginner, but Stryker lent him equipment and encouraged him to keep at it. Vachon received help as well from Walker Evans, who insisted that he master the view camera, and Arthur Rothstein, who took him along on a photographic assignment to the mountains ofVirginia . In October and November 1938, Vachon traveled toNebraska on his first extensive solo trip. He photographed agricultural programs on behalf of the FSA's regional office and pursued an extra assignment from Stryker: the city of Omaha.The hallmark of this style of photography is the portrayal of people and places encountered on the street, unembellished by the beautifying contrivances used by calendar and public relations photographers.
He was a photographer for the
Office of War Information inWashington, D.C. from 1942 to 1943, and then staff photographer forStandard Oil Company of New Jersey between 1943 and 1944. Between 1945 and 1947 he photographedNew Jersey andVenezuela for Standard, andPoland for theUnited Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration .Vachon became a staff photographer for "Life" magazine, where he worked between 1947 and 1949, and for over twenty five years beginning in 1947 at "Look" magazine. When "Look" closed in 1971 he became a freelance photographer. In 1975 he was a visiting lecturer at the
Minneapolis Institute of Arts .
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