Arnold Abner Newman was an American photographer noted for his "environmental portraits" of famous politicians and artists. As a child, he studied art and painting. After high school, he attended the University of Miami at Coral Gables. But after a couple of years, he was forced to leave school for financial reasons. He moved to Philadelphia and went to work in a portrait studio, where he learned photographic techniques by turning out 49-cent portraits by the hundreds. In 1945, he moved to new York and did freelance photojournalism for Life, Look, Newsweek, The New Yorker, Esquire, Fortune and others. Newman has photographed many actors, politicians, artists, and other famous people, such as John F. Kennedy, Harry S. Truman, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso, and Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe, Ronald Reagan and Mickey Mantle. However, he has said that even if the subject is not known, or is already forgotten, the photograph itself should still excite the viewer. Newman's portrait of Igor Stravinsky seated at a grand piano became his signature image. "Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world."

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