Photo: Tony Vaccaro Tony Vaccaro will present a retrospective of his photographs on Friday, December 4 through Sunday, December 13 at The Buzzeo Building Gallery, 31-16 36th Avenue, Long Island City, NY, 11106. The exhibit is being sponsored by the Cultural Association of the Molise Region in America, Universitas Civium Oratino.

The opening reception for the exhibit, entitled Tony Vaccaro: A Retrospective, will be held on Friday, December 4 from 7:00 – 9:30 p.m., when Vaccaro will be sharing anecdotes on select portraits in the exhibit.

The gallery will be open at the following times: Saturday and Sunday, December 5 and 6 and Saturday and Sunday, December 12 and 13 from 2-6 p.m. and Thursday and Friday, December 10 and 11 from 6-9 PM. All other times, by appointment.

Tony Vaccaro is well known not only for the many iconic portraits of the 20th century he has created —the pensive Jackson Pollock, a young Sofia Loren, the penetrating stare of Picasso, and many other artists, writers, architects, and film stars, but also for his vast collection of photos from World War II.

Vaccaro began documenting history with his Argus C3 camera as a soldier, while his sister Gloria kept him supplied with film by mail. During lulls in battle, he developed his film by mixing chemicals in battle helmets. At first he mailed the photos back home—but when censors destroyed his images of the Normandy invasion, he carried his work in his backpack, and returned to the U.S. with more than 4,000 of the 8,000 photos he had taken, the most complete record of the war. The BBC’s “Genius of Photography” series name Vaccaro “the greatest combat photographer of WW II". He later returned to Europe to document the rebuilding.

Vaccaro is a long time Long Island City resident whose parents emigrated to the United States from a small town, Bonefro, in southern Molise, Italy.