STEVE MCCURRY (USA, 1950).
"Afghan Girl. Peshawar, Pakistan, 1984.
Chromogenic print.
Annotation on the back: "Fuji color chrystal Archive Paper".
Signed in ink in the margin.
Provenance: Cesare Manzo Gallery, Pescara, Italy.
1980s edition, ca. 1987. Open edition, unnumbered.
Measurements: 45,5 x 30,5 cm (image); 49,8 x 39,5 cm (paper).
"The Afghan Girl" is the best known photograph of McCurry's career, and iconic for the history of documentary photography. He took it in 1984, in the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan during the Soviet-Afghan war. The girl, Sharbat Gula, was an Afghan refugee who had fled the violence in her country. The girl, with piercing green eyes and wrapped in a red shawl covering her shoulders and hair, captivated viewers around the world. The image appeared on the cover of the June 1985 issue of National Geographic magazine, quickly becoming one of the best known and most powerful photographs of the 20th century. The image became a symbol of the suffering and resilience of refugees and conflict in Afghanistan. It has been widely used to illustrate the plight of refugees around the world. For many years, the identity of the girl in the photograph was a mystery. In 2002, McCurry and a National Geographic team located Sharbat Gula in a remote village in Afghanistan. Her identity was confirmed by recognizing her facial features, especially her eyes.
Steve McCurry is an American photojournalist, known worldwide as the author of the photograph "The Afghan Girl," which appeared in National Geographic magazine in 1985. His career as a photographer began with the Afghan War (1978-1992). He has also covered other international conflicts such as the Iraq-Iran war or the Gulf War. After working in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, for two years, he went to India to work on his own in 1978. After a year there, he traveled to northern Pakistan. His career as a photographer began with his coverage of the Soviet war. In Afghanistan McCurry disguised himself in the country's garb to go unnoticed while working, and took film out of the country by sewing it into his clothes. His images were among the first to depict the conflict and were widely circulated. That work won him the Robert Capa Gold Medal for best foreign photojournalism, and was published in The New York Times, TIME and Paris Match. McCurry continued to cover international conflicts, including the Iran-Iraq war, Beirut, Cambodia, the Philippines, the Gulf War and Afghanistan. He survived a plane crash in Yugoslavia. His work has been published in magazines worldwide, and he is a regular contributor to National Geographic. He has been a member of the Magnum agency since 1986. In his work, McCurry concentrates on the pain caused by war. He tries to show what war does, but not only on the battlefield, but also to the people who live there. He argues that there is always something in common between all humans despite religion, language, ethnicity, etc.
Estim. 10,000 - 13,000 EUR
