(KING MARTIN LUTHER) Louw Joseph; photographer Iconic photog

Sale 2534 - Lot 279

Price Realized: $ 1,000

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500

(KING, MARTIN LUTHER.) Louw, Joseph; photographer. Iconic photograph taken moments after the King assassination. Photograph, 11 x 14 inches, with inked stamp on verso reading "Joseph Louw, Public Broadcast Laboratory, copyright Time Inc., OA74695"; worn with numerous creases, moderate staining in lower margin, pencil notes and inked note "Limbo" on verso. [Memphis, TN, 4 April 1968]

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When Martin Luther King was shot on the balcony of his Memphis hotel, Joseph Louw (1939-2003) was the only photographer on the scene. Louw was a mixed-race South African who had fled to America after breaking his country's apartheid laws. In April 1968, he was following Dr. King for the Public Broadcasting Laboratory. He was in his hotel room when the shots rang out, and rushed out to the balcony to capture this iconic image, as King's aides pointed to the rooftop from where the shots had been fired. Louw's negatives were developed at a Time-Life darkroom in New York. Early print appearances of the photograph such as in the May 1968 issue of Ebony credit him as a photographer for "Public Broadcast Laboratory @ Time, Inc.," similar to the credit stamp in the present example; it is substantially larger than the typical press photo. Louw returned to Africa the following year and remained far from the spotlight.