Feb 26, 2009 - Sale 2171

Sale 2171 - Lot 251

Price Realized: $ 6,960
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
THE ONLY PHOTOGRAPHER AT THE SCENE (KING, MARTIN LUTHER JR.) LOUW, JOSEPH. L'Assasinat de Martin Luther King. 9x12 1/2 inch gelatin silver print photograph of the Lorraine Motel, just moments after Martin Luther King was shot; numerous stamps and notations on the reverse; some wrinkling at the edges. Memphis, 1968
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a rare, classic photo, reproduced many times. The only journalist on the scene at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated April 4, 1968, Joseph Louw had been making a documentary about King and was staying on the second floor of the motel when the fatal shots rang out. He immediately grabbed his camera and began taking pictures as pandemonium unfolded around him. Also present at the motel were King''s friends, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy and Jesse Jackson, who had planned to have dinner with King that evening. As Louw''s photographs began to circulate later in the day, rioting erupted in several American cities. King''s assassin, James Earl Ray, was apprehended at London''s Heathrow Airport in June 1968 and later pleaded guilty to the crime.