Mark Kauffman miscellaneous acquisitions collection

Mark Kauffman (1922-1994) became the youngest person to ever photograph a LIFE magazine cover after his photograph of Eleanor Roosevelt was chosen, when Kauffman was a 17 year-old high school student. Kauffman went on to photograph around the world for LIFE for 30 years. In World War II he became a combat photographer in the U.S. Marines before returning to the staff of LIFE in 1945. During his career he received the Photographer of the Year Award from Encyclopedia Britannica and the White House News Photographers’ Grand Award. Kauffman was known for innovations in sports photography, including designing a motorized camera with a telephoto lens, and was chosen as the founding photo editor of Sports Illustrated, with one of his photographs of a baseball game featured on the first cover of the magazine in 1954. Between 1971 and 1976 Kauffman worked as director of photography at Playboy Magazine. He taught as professor of photography in the Art and Design Department of California Polytechnic State University from 1986 to 1992. He died in 1994 at the age of 71.