Published by teNeues this summer, Last Laughs is the last book Elliott Erwitt personally assembled shortly before his passing in 2023. A legend of the Magnum agency and tireless observer of modern life, the photographer brought together 120 black-and-white images, chosen as winks to the world. In its large format (27.5 × 34 cm), the book stands as both a tribute to his career and a visual testament where irony and nostalgia meet.
The photographs span more than five decades of work, from the streets of New York to the beaches of Saint-Tropez, from Las Vegas hotels to Paris museums. Several of his iconic images are featured: a visitor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York scrutinizing a painting and mimicking the posture of its subject; dogs capturing the viewer’s attention with their almost human attitude; a swimsuit-clad couple caught in Honolulu, offering an involuntary scene of comedy.
Erwitt often said he photographed dogs because “they don’t object to being photographed and they never ask for prints.” In Last Laughs, they once again appear as the ideal accomplices to his understated humor. These animals, often secondary in other works of his era, become central characters here — we see them striking poses, observing, sometimes even staring right back at us. This canine gaze, unburdened by self-consciousness, mirrors that of the photographer. “Photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”
This book contains everything that made Elliott Erwitt famous. Some images are true absurdist postcards: at Versailles in 1975, a solitary figure appears lost in time, dwarfed by the grandeur of the château. Elsewhere, in Managua in 1957, Erwitt captures the gravity of a political scene, but with just enough irony to defuse the solemnity. “The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things with words,” said the photographer.
One of the most memorable photographs shows a steam locomotive rushing across a barren prairie while, alongside, a car drives along a parallel road. The double rhythm — the smoke of the engine and the gleam of the car’s bodywork — creates a visual and poetic jolt. It’s exactly the kind of scene Erwitt loved: simple, almost banal frames, where composition, timing, and irony combine to surprise.
The book also relies on sequencing: each double-page spread is conceived as a visual narrative, alternating between moments of pure comedy and flashes of melancholy. Last Laughs also reveals lesser-known images, chosen by Erwitt to interact with one another, infused with humor that is never trivial, used as a way to confront the complexity of the world. A photographer who continues to hold up a mirror to us, even after his passing.
Last Laughs by Elliott Erwitt is available from teNeues, priced at €65 or $75.
