A candid shot of the young senator by Life magazine’s Ed Clark portrayed him as a man to lead a new generation into a new decade
Ed Clark, a Life magazine staff photographer, was commissioned to photograph the Kennedy family at home in Georgetown in 1958. JFK was campaigning to be elected to a second term as Massachusetts’s senator and, if successful, there were strong rumours that he would make a run for the presidency in 1960. After several days taking pictures of husband and wife, Clark asked over lunch at the house if he could get a picture of the senator with his baby daughter, Caroline. “Jackie said no,” he recalled, “that she was upstairs asleep. But Jack bounded up the stairs, and I followed.”
Clark took a spontaneous roll of film up in the nursery. It included this picture capturing the moment Caroline woke up, wide-eyed with delight to see her father. The nation was starting to share that excitement. Clark’s cover story for Life did much to advance the growing conviction that Kennedy was a leader for a new generation and a new decade. Up until that moment, presidents were far more likely to be grandparents than new dads, and family photographs were largely awkwardly staged compositions.
Continue reading…A candid shot of the young senator by Life magazine’s Ed Clark portrayed him as a man to lead a new generation into a new decadeEd Clark, a Life magazine staff photographer, was commissioned to photograph the Kennedy family at home in Georgetown in 1958. JFK was campaigning to be elected to a second term as Massachusetts’s senator and, if successful, there were strong rumours that he would make a run for the presidency in 1960. After several days taking pictures of husband and wife, Clark asked over lunch at the house if he could get a picture of the senator with his baby daughter, Caroline. “Jackie said no,” he recalled, “that she was upstairs asleep. But Jack bounded up the stairs, and I followed.”Clark took a spontaneous roll of film up in the nursery. It included this picture capturing the moment Caroline woke up, wide-eyed with delight to see her father. The nation was starting to share that excitement. Clark’s cover story for Life did much to advance the growing conviction that Kennedy was a leader for a new generation and a new decade. Up until that moment, presidents were far more likely to be grandparents than new dads, and family photographs were largely awkwardly staged compositions. Continue reading…