Nat Fein

Nat Fein began to work for the New York Herald Tribune as a copyboy in 1932. After investing in a camera years later, he became a press photographer for the paper, creating a working relationship that lasted over three decades. While working as a staff photographer at the Tribune, Nat Fein would set out to cover Babe Ruth’s last public appearance in his photograph Babe Bows Out.

Nat Fein was born in Manhattan, NY, in 1914, and was raised in the Lower East Side. He became widely renowned for winning a Pulitzer Prize with his photograph of Babe Ruth’s final public appearance at Yankee Stadium. He considered himself “just a human-interest photographer,” and some of his finest pictures depict New York in a post-WWII era. Remembered as one the best press photographers of his era, Nat Fein captured the changing New York landscape as modernization shaped and molded its neighborhoods. He captured some of history’s most iconic personalities. These included Albert Einstein, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Marilyn Monroe, Queen Elizabeth, Harry Truman, and Eleanor Roosevelt, to name a few. As one of the best press photographers of his time, Fein won more awards than any of his contemporaries. Known for his audacity in getting the right shot, he would climb buildings and bridges for proper composition. Nat Fein will be remembered as one of the great photojournalists of the late 20th century, helping cement photography as a valuable medium of artistic expression and journalism.