Anja Niedringhaus
Baghdad
2003
Pigment print.. 28 x 40.3 cm (29.7 x 42.1 cm). Photographer's blindstamp in the right margin. Signed, dated and titled in pencil on the verso.
The German photo reporter Anja Niedringhaus has reported on war and crisis zones for almost a quarter of a century, often from the front line and at the risk of her life. In her pictures of the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, she depicted the actual acts of war but the focus of her interest was above all the suffering inflicted upon the civilian population.
The photograph offered here shows President George W. Bush visiting the troops on Thanksgiving in Baghdad in 2003. It appeared on numerous magazine covers and was part of the series for which Anja Niedringhaus was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2005. When the picture went around the world and speculations arose that the turkey had been a dummy, the photographer denied it by pointing out that she herself had 'pinched' it for the purpose of checking (cf. Minka Nijjuis, loc.cit., p. 34). Anja Niedringhaus died in an assassination attempt on 4 April 2014, the day prior the presidential election in Afghanistan.
Provenance
From the photographer to the present owner
Literature
Hannelore Fischer (ed.), Anja Niedringhaus - Bilderkriegerin, exhib.cat. Käthe Kollwitz Museum, Köln, Cologne 2019, ill. p. 34 (variant, here titled: Präsident George W. Bush besucht die US-Truppen zu Thanksgiving in Bagdad, 27. November 2003)