Arthur B. Rickerby was born in New York City in 1921, and died in Connecticut in 1972. He began his illustrious career in sports photography as a student at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Upon graduation, he joined the U.S. Navy where he served in the elite photographic unit headed by then Captain Edward Steichen, one of the great masters of American photography. When World War II ended, Rickerby was recruited by Acme Photos (eventually United Press International, or UPI) in New York City, and covered a wide range of assignments – Japan and China’s recovery from war, a coffee crisis in Brazil, and the formation of the United Nations. The middle of his career was marked by the capturing of one of the most famous sports images of all time: New York Yankee Don Larsen pitching the only perfect game in World Series history. On October 8, 1956, Larsen threw ninety-seven pitches at twenty-seven batters from his arch-rival team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, who were unable to score. In the late 1950s Rickerby left UPI to become a highly successful free lance photographer. His work appeared in dozens of publications, and in 1960 he was invited to join the prestigious staff of Life magazine. He was immediately sent to cover the Kennedy White House. Later he traveled extensively in Asia, doing a story on rice as the world’s most important nutrient, and dozens of other essays. He was, however, perhaps best known for his color essays on football, hockey, auto racing and a variety of other sports. He is remembered as one of the first press photographers to experiment with 35mm film, and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his active role in developing a more realistic approach to photojournalism.
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