Academy awards night
Curt Gunther (1919 - 1991) was born in Berlin, Germany and came to New York City as a teenager in the late 1930s with a camera and not much else. Photography was the one thing he knew, so that's what he did.
Over the next five decades he built a reputation as one of the most trusted photographers in the business. He served as Chief Photographer for Keystone Pictures, ran his own studio, and shot everyone from Presidents Truman and Eisenhower to Elizabeth Taylor, Joe Louis and a long list of Hollywood stars and sports legends. He was the kind of photographer people wanted around because he knew how to be present without getting in the way.
In the summer of 1964 that instinct earned him something very few people ever got.
Through his friendship with Beatles press officer Derek Taylor, Curt was granted access to join the band on their first North American tour. He traveled with them on their chartered plane, sat with them backstage, and was right in the middle of it all.
Most of those photographs were never widely published during his lifetime. His son Steven later preserved the negatives and brought them to the world, including an exhibition at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in New York and the acclaimed book Mania Days.
The photographs in this exhibition were preserved by his son Steven Gunther and are presented here by his loving family.