Tomas Palumbo (January 25, 1921 – October 13, 2008) was an Italian-born American photographer and theatre director.

Biography

Palumbo was born in

Molfetta Molfetta (; Bari dialect, Molfettese: ) is a town located in the northern side of the Metropolitan City of Bari, Apulia, southern Italy. It has a well restored old city, and its own dialect. History The earliest local signs of permanent habit ...

, Italy, in 1921. His family moved to New York City when he was about twelve years old. As a young man, Palumbo was employed first building scale models for ships in an engineering company. Later, he was employed as an assistant by photographer James Abbe. His experience working with Abbe led him to commercial work in fashion photography. His early campaign work for Peck & Peck Department Store appeared in ''Vogue'' and ''Bazaar'' magazines from 1949 to 1953. Palumbo was a staff photographer of '' Vogue'' from 1959 until 1962 and at ''

Harper's Bazaar ''Harper's Bazaar'' (stylized as ''Harper's BAZAAR'') is an American monthly women's fashion magazine. Bazaar has been published in New York City since November 2, 1867, originally as a weekly publication entitled ''Harper's Bazar''."Corporat ...

'' from 1953 until 1959, where he worked with the art directors Alex Liberman and

Alexey Brodovitch Alexey Vyacheslavovich Brodovitch (also Brodovich; , ; 1898 – April 15, 1971) was a Belarusian-American photographer, designer and instructor who is most famous for his art direction of fashion magazine ''Harper's Bazaar'' from 1934 to ...

. He was a vice-president of creative productions at Ted Bates, where he oversaw all TV commercials. Palumbo was a lifelong member of the

Actors Studio The Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights located on West 44th Street in Hell's Kitchen in New York City. The studio is best known for its work refining and teaching method actin ...

. He taught photography at

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase th ...

, and he taught directing at the

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by Silas ...

in New York City. He directed plays

Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

and in regional theatres. His last production was ''An Evening of Proust'' at

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 ...

. He was a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. Palumbo's first marriage was to model Anne St. Marie, until her death of lung cancer in 1986. The couple had two children. Later, he married

Patricia Bosworth Patricia Bosworth (née Crum, April 24, 1933 – April 2, 2020) was an American journalist, biographer, memoirist, and actress. She was a faculty member of Columbia University’s school of journalism as well as Barnard College, and was a winne ...

(1933–2020) in 2000. In October 2008, Palumbo died due to complications from

Lewy body Lewy bodies are the inclusion bodies – abnormal aggregations of protein – that develop inside neurons affected by Parkinson's disease (PD), the Lewy body dementias ( Parkinson's disease dementia and dementia with Lewy bodies (DL ...

disease.Why I Left My Husband Out of My Memoir About Love
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References

Bibliography

*Bosworth, Patricia (2018). Tom Palumbo, Dreamer with a thousand thrills, the rediscovered photography. PowerHouse Books, 2018. .

External links

Tom Palumbo's Image of Jack Kerouac in ''Vanity Fair''
*
Tom Palumbo's Flickr pages
1921 births 2008 deaths 20th-century American photographers American theatre directors Harper's Bazaar Italian emigrants to the United States People from Molfetta Rhode Island School of Design faculty School of Visual Arts faculty Vogue (magazine) people {{Theat-director-stub