Some of the most searing images of the Vietnam War and other conflicts in the past 60 years are to be auctioned off in a rare opportunity to acquire signed and mounted prints by some of the world’s leading photojournalists.
The images are on show at the Freedom Forum, Stanhope House, Stanhope Place, London W1 for seven days before being auctioned off for charity on Thursday, April 26 at 7.00 p.m.
They include a signed copy of Vietnamese photographer Nick Ut’s stunning picture of a small Vietnamese girl fleeing a napalm attack on her village, as well as the dramatic colour image taken by American photographer Robert J. Ellison at the instant an ammunition dump exploded in a ball of flame at the U.S. Marine Base in Khe Sanh in 1968
Also on sale is a print by UPI photographer Hubert Van Es of his iconic image of an Air America Huey helicopter teetering on top of a building in Saigon, loading Americans and Vietnamese fleeing the South Vietnamese capital only hours before communist forces closed in in April, 1975.
The proceeds of the auction will go to the Indochina Media Memorial Fund, a registered charity set up by veteran prize-winning photographer Tim Page to commemorate the 300 plus journalists who died covering the conflict in Indochina on both sides.
Other wars are represented too – Bert Hardy’s image of U.S. Marines in Korea is shown, as well as two of the earliest known works of war photography from the Crimea conflict nearly 150 years ago. They’ve been donated by Lord MacDonald of Tradston, the transport minister, who is a respected collector of old images from his days as a documentary film-maker for Granada. Lord Puttnam, the film producer, has also donated a print for the auction, and Harry Evans, the former Sunday Times editor who wrote Pictures on a Page, a defining book on newspaper photojournalism, has lent his support to the project.
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