Industry News


The W. Eugene Smith Fund Flash Print Sale Starts Now

November 19, 2021

By Jacqueline Tobin

Since 1979, the W. Eugene Smith Fund has presented more than $1 million to documentary photographers around the world, with many going on to become some of the most legendary documentary photographers of our time. These photographers are dedicated to telling stories with passion, persistence and perseverance—as was Smith himself—and for the second year in a row, many are helping raise funds for future grant recipients by donating their own photos for the annual W. Eugene Smith Fund’s 2021 Flash Print Sale. (Net proceeds from this sale will go towards the 2022 grant cycle.)

W. Eugene Smith Fun Prints sale has begun.
You can view all of the prints being sold for $150 each here.

William Eugene Smith was born in 1918 in Wichita, Kansas and took his first photographs at the age of 15 for two local newspapers. Smith entered Notre Dame University in 1936, where a special photographic scholarship was created for him. A year later he left the university and went to New York City, and after studying with Helene Sanders at the New York Institute of Photography. In 1937, he began working for News-Week (later Newsweek), and then eventually joined the Black Star agency as a freelancer.

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Smith worked as a war correspondent for Flying magazine from 1943-1944, and a year later for LIFE (1947-1955. He then joined Magnum as an associate and in 1957, he became a full member of the photo agency. Smith was fanatically dedicated to his mission as a photographer and the Fund continues to support photographers whose work follows in the tradition of his humanistic photography.

The flash sale will run from today, November 19, through December 5. All prints will be issued as unsigned open editions and printed by Digital Silver Imaging as 11×14-inch archival pigment prints on Hahnemühle paper. Each print in the collection is $150, comes with a certificate of authenticity and ships in late December from Massachusetts.

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Photographers represented in this year’s print sale include Donna Ferrato, Eugene Richards, Matt Eich, Darcy Padilla, Moises Saman, Peter van Agtmael, and Eugene Smith (archives). To view the full list of photographers and see the prints for sale, click here. (View some of the images up for sale in the gallery above.)

There will be a handling fee for both international and domestic orders, in addition to the cost of the print. All net proceeds will be applied toward future financial grants for documentary photographers around the world.