Max desfor biography

American photographer (1913–2018)

Max Desfor (November 8, 1913 – February 19, 2018) was an American photographer who received the Pulitzer Prize for his Korean War photograph, Flight of Refugees Across Wrecked Bridge in Korea, depicting Pyongyang residents and refugees crawling over a destroyed bridge across the Taedong River to escape the advancing Chinese Communist troops.

Background

Desfor was born on November 8, 1913, in The Bronx, New York, the son of Jewish emigrants, his father from Russia and his mother from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After graduating New Utrecht High School, he attended Brooklyn College for only a year then quit.

Max desfor 1951

He began working as a messenger with the Associated Press (AP), where his brother was a photo retoucher. Desfor taught himself photography basics and was hired as a staff photographer in 1938. Initially based in Baltimore, he moved to the Washington, D.C., bureau a year later.^[1]

Career

Soon after the Unite