David Attie

David Attie (November 30, 1920 – August 1, 1982) was an American photographer, published in magazines and books from the late 1950s until his death. He was one of the last proteges of photography teacher and art director Alexey Brodovitch. Attie worked in a wide range of styles, illustrating everything from novels to magazine and album covers to subway posters, and taking portraits of Truman Capote, Bobby Fischer, Lorraine Hansberry, and others. He created the first-ever visual depiction of Holly Golightly, the main character in Breakfast at Tiffany's, when he illustrated the Capote novella's first appearance in Esquire Magazine. He was best known in his lifetime for his photo montages—an approach he called "multiple-image photography": pre-Photoshop collages that he made by combining negatives in the darkroom. His work has received new attention with a pair of posthumous books: the 2015 publication of his Capote collaboration Brooklyn: A Personal Memoir, With The Lost Photographs of David Attie, and the 2021 collection of his behind-the-scenes photographs from the first season of Sesame Street, The Unseen Photos of Street Gang. He has been the subject of several solo exhibits, including a two-year retrospective at the Brooklyn Historical Society. One critic wrote that even decades later, "his explorations of photomontage remain durably inspired, innovative, and visually dynamic."