offer greetings from mutual friends in Berlin. Unin-
vited, he hoped Einstein would pose for a portrait,
but Einstein had little interest. Vishniac recalled:
It was a singular experience. An idea had suddenly
come to him, and the room was filled with the move-
ment of the great man’s thought. I waited several min-
utes, and then when I saw that he did not intend to say
anything more to me and that he was off in a world of his
own, I started taking pictures.
Einstein later admitted that a Vishniac photo-
graph taken that day was his favorite portrait. In
1942, after Vishniac sold a series of photographs of
the may fly toNaturemagazine, he gave up portrait
photography to freelance nature studies. His apart-
ment studio became half zoo, half laboratory as he
worked with live insects, fish, and assorted creatures.
Scorning all that was not real life, he spent countless
hours observing and taking close-up shots of every-
thingfromanaphidtoanamoeba.Hefoundbeauty
in the detail under the microscope of commonplace
animal and plant life, such as one-celled protozoa, or
‘‘the jewels in the mud.’’ He said:
Everything made by human hands looks terrible under
magnification—crude, rough, and unsymmetrical. But in
nature, every bit of life is lovely. The more magnification
that we can use, the more details are brought out, per-
fectly formed.
Vishniac’s quest for sharing knowledge led him to
teach and lecture as well as to produce numerous
scientific achievements, such as work in time-lapse
photomicroscopy, pioneering in the field of cytoplas-
mic circulation as connected with photosynthesis,
and research in marine biology. He taught at several
universities, including Albert Einstein College of
Medicine, Yeshiva University, City University of
New York, and Pratt Institute. As both a humanist
and a scientist, his contributions to man’s under-
standing of the relationship among nature, man,
and the arts cannot be underestimated. However, it
was his fascination and sensitivity toward life in all
its forms that was Vishniac’s great strength. ‘‘I am in
the business of discovery,’’ he liked to say. With a
fervent devotion to his fellow Jews and his scientific
pursuits, Vishniac left behind images of subjects that
are impossible to see with the naked eye—both the
beauty and the mystery—whether they be tiny
organisms or the depravity of evil. Cornell Capa
wrote, ‘‘It’s hard to encompass the totality of his
range. He is a universal man, a man of great dreams.
His work is a kind of wonderfully endless contribu-
tion to what a concerned human being and photo-
grapher is.’’
CynthiaElyceRubinSeealso: Documentary Photography; History of
Photography: Interwar Years; Photography in Rus-
sia and Eastern Europe; PortraitureBiography
Born near St. Petersburg, Russia, 19 August 1897. Raised and
attended schools in Moscow. Attended Shanyavsky Uni-
versity in Moscow, 1914–1920. Received M.D. degree,- Attended University of Berlin and completed Ph.D.
work in Oriental Art Studies, 1928–1933. Photographed
European Jews, 1936–1939; Portrait photographer in New
York, 1941–1950. Appointed Research Associate at the
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Dept. of Anatomy,
1957–1963; Project Director and filmmaker for the Living
Biology Series for the National Science Foundation, 1960–
1972; Appointed Professor of Biological Education, Yes-
hiva University, 1961; Best of-the-Show Awards, annual
exhibitions of the New York chapter of the Biological
Photographic Association, 1952, 1953, 1954; American
Society of Magazine Photographers Memorial Award,
1956; subject of documentary film produced by Craig
Fisher and John Martin, ‘‘Roman’s Legions,’’ 1971; Deliv-
ered William A. Reedy Memorial Lecture in Photography,
‘‘Vishniac’s Vision: A Veneration of Life,’’ Rochester Insti-
tute of Technology, 1982; Died in New York City, 22
January 1990.
Individual Exhibitions
1939 Louvre Museum; Paris, France
1962 Through the Looking Glass; IBM Gallery, New York
1971 The Concerns of Roman Vishniac: Man, Nature and
Science; The Jewish Museum, New York, New York
1973 The Concerned Photographer; The Israel Museum, Jer-
usalem, Israel
1983 Roman Vishniac: A Vanished World; International Center
of Photography, New York, New York
1984 Roman Vishniac: A Vanished World;MuseumofPho-
tographic Arts, San Francisco, CaliforniaSelected Group Exhibitions
1950 American Photographers; Museum of Modern Art,
New York, New York
1955 The Family of Man; Museum of Modern Art, New
York, New York, and traveling
1959 Photography at Mid-Century: 10th Anniversary Exhi-
bition; George Eastman House, Rochester, New York
1960 The Sense of Abstraction in Contemporary Photogra-
phy; Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York
1962 Photography-USA: National Invitational Photography
Exhibition; DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Garden,
Lincoln, Massachusetts
1974 Classics of Documentary Photography; International
Center of Photography, New York, New York
1975 In Just Seconds: A Survey of Polaroid Color Photogra-
phy; International Center of Photography, New York,
New York
1979 Life: The First Decade 1936–1945; Grey Art Gallery,
New York, New York
1982 International Photography 1920–1945; National Gal-
lery of Australia, Canberra, AustraliaVISHNIAC, ROMAN