William Eugene Smith (b. 1918, Wichita, Kansas; d. 1978, Tucson, Arizona) took his first photographs at the age of 15 for two local newspapers. In 1936 Smith entered Notre Dame University in Wichita, where a special photographic scholarship was created for him. A year later he left the university and went to New York City, and after studying with Helene Sanders at the New York Institute of Photography, in 1937 he began working for News-Week (later Newsweek), worked as a war correspondent for Flying magazine, and Life, becoming a full member of Magnum Photos in 1957. His archives are held by the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona. Today, Smithās legacy lives on through the W. Eugene Smith Fund to promote humanistic photography, founded in 1980, which awards photographers for exceptional accomplishments in the field.
