So when Loren and Mastriano co-starred in the romantic comedy “Marriage Italian Style,” LIFE dispatched photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt—who had already taken so many great photos Loren—to document the moment.

The resulting photo set includes two of the best-selling images in the LIFE print store. The popularity of one is no mystery—it is a full-body shot of the voluptuous Loren in a sheer nightgown. In 1966, when LIFE ran a career tribute to the photography of Eisenstaedt, it placed that racy photo of Loren on the cover of the magazine.

The other popular photo from this shoot is one of Mastroianni, and its appeal is more of the cheeky variety. The photo shows the debonair actor in an unlikely pose— sitting on a bidet, smoking a cigarette.

In Marriage Italian Style, Mastroianni and Loren play a star-crossed couple. When their characters meet, she is a prostitute, and she becomes his longtime mistress—with aspirations to become his wife. The movie takes dramatic turns on its rocky way to happily ever after. LIFE’s review of Marriage Italian Style summed it up thusly: “Sophia turns from a high-spirited whore with girlish dreams into a battler for hollow respectability and finally into some kind of earth mother fighting for her young. Mastroianni meanwhile slips unobtrusively and cleverly from a youthful roué to a wistful one, and what began as a noisy, hokey clash of wills becomes a wry, touching conflict in which the only victor is humanity—which nobody can depict in its fine fallibility quite so well as the Italians.”

The movie received two Oscar nominations: one for Best Foreign Language Film, and the other for Best Actress (Loren lost out to Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins). Loren and Mastroianni, who made many films together, are now regarded as of the great screen pairings in the history of cinema. Meanwhile Eisenstaedt’s winning images from the set continue to delight as they pay tribute to the king and queen of Italian cinema.

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni on the set of the 1964 film “Marriage Italian Style.”

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni on the set of the 1964 film “Marriage Italian Style.”

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni on the set of the 1964 film “Marriage Italian Style.”

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marcello Mastroianni on the set of the 1964 film “Marriage Italian Style.”

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Marcello Mastroianni on the set of the 1964 film “Marriage Italian Style.”

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren in a brothel scene from the 1964 film ‘Marriage Italian Style,’ directed by Vittorio De Sica.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren in a brothel scene from the 1964 film ‘Marriage Italian Style’, directed by Vittorio De Sica.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren on the set of the 1964 film ‘Marriage Italian Style’, directed by Vittorio De Sica.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni on the set of the 1964 film “Marriage Italian Style.”

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni on the set of the 1964 film “Marriage Italian Style.”

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni on the set of the 1964 film “Marriage Italian Style.”

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni on the set of the 1964 film “Marriage Italian Style.”

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni on the set of the 1964 film “Marriage Italian Style.”

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren on the set of the 1964 film ‘Marriage Italian Style’, directed by Vittorio De Sica.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren sitting on director Vittorio de Sica’s lap during the making of the 1964 film Marriage, Italian Style.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren on the set of the 1964 film ‘Marriage Italian Style’, directed by Vittorio De Sica.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren on the set of the 1964 film ‘Marriage Italian Style’, directed by Vittorio De Sica.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Sophia, Marcello and a Movie Set to Remember appeared first on LIFE.

The editors of LIFE shared the fascination.

The magazine’s June 2, 1941 issue included a story headlined “World’s Smallest Hippopotamus Arrives in U.S. From Liberia.” The pygmy hippo in question had been abandoned by its mother, found by Liberian natives and turned over to a man named Silas E. Johnson, who worked in Liberia and was an amateur zoologist.

Johnson then sailed to New York City for his “biannual three-month vacation in the U.S,” according to LIFE, and brought the baby hippo with him. When the hippo arrived in America, he was two months old, weighed nine pounds, was 18 inches long, and had acquired the name Skipper during the course of his sea journey. Legendary LIFE staff photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt was there to capture the magic.

LIFE explained exactly what made Skipper so precious:

The rarity of Mr. Johnson’s pet lies in the fact that pygmy hippopotamuses, found only in Liberia, are stalwart fighters which fiercely protect their young….When he is full-grown, Skipper will weight about 400 pounds. Normal hippos weight 30 pounds at birth, three tons at maturity.

While Skipper was rare, he was not entirely unique. In 1952 LIFE featured another pygmy hippo that had come to the U.S. This little fellow was named Gumdrop, and he and his zookeeper were photographed for the magazine by George Skadding. Unlike Skipper, Gumdrop came to the U.S. in the company of his mother.

How rare is a pygmy hippopotamus? Outside of zoos, the animal’s primary habitat remains in Libera and other neighboring West African countries. According to an estimate in 2015, only about 2,500 pygmy hippos remain alive in the wild.

This rare baby pygmy hippopotamus, named Skipper, was abandoned by his mother in Liberia and brought to the U.S. by boat in 1941 in the company of an amateur zoologist.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This rare baby pygmy hippopotamus, named Skipper, was abandoned by his mother in Liberia and brought to the U.S. by boat in 1941 in the company of an amateur zoologist. Skipper needed to be kept wet to prevent his skin from peeling.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This rare baby pygmy hippopotamus, named Skipper, was abandoned by his mother in Liberia and brought to the U.S. by boat in 1941 in the company of an amateur zoologist.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Amateur zoologist Silas E. Johnson brought this baby pygmy hippopotamus abandoned by his mother from Liberia to the U.S.; during the boatride from Africa to New York, the hippo acquired the nickname Skipper.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This baby pygmy hippopotamus, abandoned by his mother in LIberia and brought to the U.S. by an amateur zoologist, consumed a half-pint of condensed milk and pablum from a bottle four times a day, 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A baby pygmy hippo named Gumdrop received a bath, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A baby pygmy hippo named Gumdrop and his mother, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A zookeeper administered a bath to Gumdrop, a baby pygmy hippo, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gumdrop, a baby pygmy hippo, was toweled off by a zookeeper following his bath, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gumdrop, a baby pygmy hippo, fed with his mother, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Before Moo Deng: Little Hippos in LIFE appeared first on LIFE.

Eisenstaedt captured political advocacy carried out face-to-face, and neighbor-to-neighbor, as people chatted up their favorite candidates, and did so in a manner that seems earnest but not angry. The only sign of extremism in these photos was of a man at a diner who refused to shave his beard until the country had a Republican president—and even he had a goofy grin on his face.

The notable absence in these photos is the crowds of media that are a staple of modern campaign coverage. Eisenstaedt took two portraits of men at typewriters—one was the founder of Yankee magazine and the other the publisher of a Concord newspaper—and that is the only press you see. There are no television cameras, no candidates mobbed by crowds of microphones, and obviously no one letting it rip on social media.

Of course politicians and their promises could still be exhausting. The image that leads this gallery features a man sitting in the front row, listening as a supporter makes a case for his candidate, Dwight. D. Eisenhower. The listener appears to be profoundly tired. It’s possible that he had simply come from a long day at work, but his expression seems to be that of a person who, as a resident of this small state that hosts a critical early primary every four years, had been hearing it from politicians all of his life.

Eisenhower was one of the two leading candidates on the Republican side in 1952. The other was Robert Taft, a powerful Senator from Ohio—perhaps the Taft-Hartley Act rings a bell from history class—and the son of former president William Taft. Going into the race Taft had been the favorite of the party’s conservatives.

Eisenhower beat Taft in New Hampshire, by a larger margin than expected. On the Democratic side, incumbent president Harry Truman took a surprising loss to Estes Kefauver, a Senator from Tennessee. LIFE, in its report in the magazine, noted that, “If the vote reflected the sentiment of the country, the American people are looking for new political faces.”

It turned out that the voters of 1952 did indeed want new faces. Soon after New Hampshire Truman withdrew from the race, which cleared a path for the eventual Democratic nominee, Adlai Stevenson. Eisenhower, meanwhile, rolled over Taft to capture the nomination, and then the presidency.

It’s why, all these years later, candidates still flock to New Hampshire, looking to stake an early claim.

If you want more vintage New Hampshire coverage, here’s a colorful look at Richard Nixon vs. George Romney, 1968.

A rally for Dwight Eisenhower during New Hampshire primary season, 1952.

Alfred Eisenstadt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A gathering during presidential primary season in Ossipee, New Hampshire, 1952.

Alfred Eisenstadt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Taft supporter Grace Sterling chatted up paper mill worker Quiddihy during the New Hampshire primary, 1952.

Alfred Eisenstadt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An Eisenhower supporter called on a neighbor during the presidential primary campaign in New Hampshire, 1952.

Alfred Eisenstadt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Grace Sterling fixed her brother-in-law’s tie that announced his support for Robert Taft during the 1952 New Hampshire primary.

Alfred Eisenstadt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

David and Elizabeth Bradley visited their neighbor during the New Hampshire presidential primary campaign, New Hampshire, 1952.

Alfred Eisenstadt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New Hampshire primary season, 1952.

Alfred Eisenstadt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Harold Young, acting as campaign manager for Eisenhower in New Hampshire primary, 1952.

Alfred Eisenstadt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Locals left a town meeting on behalf of Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower during the primary election campaign in Canterbury, New Hampshire, 1952.

Alfred Eisenstadt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Robb Hansell Sagendorph, founder of Yankee Magazine, during New Hampshire primary season, 1952.

Alfred Eisenstadt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

James McLellan Langley of the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire, 1952.

Alfred Eisenstadt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Francis Grover Cleveland (left), the son of President Grover Cleveland, in New Hampshire during primary season, 1952. Cleveland, an actor, ran a theater in New Hampshire and served on a town board in Tamworth.

Alfred Eisenstadt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Samuel Marden vowed not to shave until there was a Republican president, New Hampshire, 1952.

Alfred Eisenstadt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Workers during the 1952 New Hampshire primary.

Alfred Eisenstadt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Election officials tallied returns in the New Hampshire primary, Concord, New Hampshire, 1952.

Alfred Eisenstadt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Women sat in the fire hall outside the polls during voting in the New Hampshire primary, 1952.

Alfred Eisenstadt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Republican presidential candidate Robert Taft in New Hampshire, days before he lost the primary to Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1952.

Alfred Eisenstadt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Primary Focus: Eisenstaedt’s Images of New Hampshire appeared first on LIFE.

Sometimes LIFE photographers went to Miami because they were following the stars. It was a place to catch Frank Sinatra goofing around with this pals, or the Beatles on tour, or Muhammad Ali celebrating with Malcolm X after winning the heavyweight title from Sonny Liston.

In one case Miami was even a backdrop to history, when the U.S Army was using the famed beach as a training camp.

But more often LIFE photographers went to Miami to showcase Americans enjoying a certain kind of leisure—the kind with fancy hotels and swimsuits and glitzy shows.

Many of the images in this collection come from a 1940 shoot by legendary LIFE photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt that chronicled the beginning of boom times for Miami. Here’s what LIFE had to say in its March 4, 1940 issue about Miami becoming a magnet for the leisure class:

In 1912 Miami was a sleepy town of 7,500 people and Miami Beach, three and a half miles away across a tidal lagoon, was an untidy sand bar populated primarily by crabs and mosquitos. In that year an enterprising young Indiana automobile millionaire named Carl Fischer descended on the town and, with the assistance of two elephants, Nero and Rosie, began turning it into a winter resort. Miami and Miami Beach have been booming ever since. Currently Miami has a population of about 140,000 and Miami Beach of 20,000. The two are easily the No. 1 playground of the world’s most playful nation.

Of course Miami and Miami Beach had even more growth ahead, as captured in the photos LIFE took in succeeding years. Today the populations for Miami and Miami Beach have ballooned to around 439,000 and 80,000. And that mirrors the growth of Florida as a whole. In 1940 Florida was only the 27th most populous state in America, coming in right behind West Virginia and South Carolina. Today Florida ranks 3rd in the country in population, trailing only Florida and Texas.

Many forces contributed to that population growth, including immigration, but the promise of the kind of life that Eisenstaedt captured in his photos was surely was a psychological magnet to the retirees who came to Miami and to the rest of the state to spend their retirement years among the palm trees.

Miami Beach, Florida, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A doorman and a row of bellhops at the entrance of Surf Club in Miami, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A Miami resort, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Miami Beach fashions, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Kayakers in a resort pool, Miami Beach, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

People sightseeing in Miami Beach, Florida, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Miami Beach, Florida, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Miami Beach, Florida, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Miami Beach fashions, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Miami juice stand, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Miami Beach, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Miami Beach, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Miami Beach, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Miami Beach during a cold spell, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Miami Beach during a cold spell, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jai alai, Miami, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Recruits trained for war in Miami Beach, 1942.

Myron Davis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Soliders in training took an ocean swim, Miami Beach, 1942.

William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Miami, 1944.

Eliot Elisofon/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, on vacation in Miami Beach, 1955.

Robert W. Kelley/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, on vacation in Miami Beach, 1955.

Robert W. Kelley/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A Miami nightclub, 1959.

Robert W. Kelley/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A Miami nightclub, 1959.

Robert W. Kelley/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A Miami nightlub dancer in her off time, 1959.

Robert W. Kelley/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A Miami nightclub dancer at home, 1959.

Robert W. Kelley/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Miami, 1959.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A windjamming tour from Miami, 1961.

Michael Rougier/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Muhammad Ali (right) posed at a soda fountain for Malcolm X (left, with camera) in Miami after winning the heavyweight title from Sonny Liston, 1964.

(c) Bob Gomel / Courtesy of Bob Gomel

The Beatles running on the beach in Miami, February 1964.

©Bob Gomel

Tony Bennett was out with Frank Sinatra after a performance in Miami, 1965.

John Dominis/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post The Glamour of Vintage Miami appeared first on LIFE.

The pages of LIFE chronicled the rise and rise of the legendary conductor. In its Jan. 7, 1957 issue LIFE ran a multi-page story on Bernstein headlined “Busy Time for a Young Maestro.” He was conducting thrice-weekly performances with the New York Philharmonic, while also dividing attention between one musical he had on Broadway, Candide, and another that was on its way and would elevate his star even higher—West Side Story. Bernstein also had ballets on his plate and five records in the pipeline in which he was either the conductor, composer or performer. “It’s perfectly possible to do all the things I have to,” he told LIFE, “but it’s a little hard doing them all at once.” The photos for that story, shot by Alfred Eisenstaedt, also gave a window into Bernstein’s personal life, showing Bernstein and his wife Felicia (played in the film by Carrie Mulligan) at home with their children around the piano.

In 1958 LIFE photographer Gordon Parks captured more memorable images of Bernstein when following him around for that year’s opening for the Philharmonic, including a lovely photo of Bernstein and Felicia dancing at the end of the night.

His further appearances included a 1969 article about Bernstein as he prepared to leave the New York Philharmonic at age 50. This was the end of a major chapter in Bernstein’s career, and the tone of the story, by Thomas Thompson, was elegiac. Here’s how it ended:

John F. Kennedy said, after a gala at the Washington Armory, that there was only one person he would never want to run against. Laurence Olivier once said that if he had the choice to be anyone in the world besides himself, he would choose but one other man. In the last hours of a long night in London, this envy of Kennedy and Olivier sat at a gleaming Steinway in his hotel suite, pounding out private crashing chords, wondering if 50 is halfway, the beginning, the end. This captive of the modern age, this effect and cause, this musician who could perhaps bring back the era of symphonic genius if there were the time but who wonders if there were the time would there also be the genius, this man, Leonard Bernstein, dreams of catching his breath and maybe his life.

Bernstein would in fact keep a busy schedule in the decades after he left the Philharmonic, and up through the last years of his life. His last major event was a historic one: on Christmas Day 1989, in Berlin, he conducted a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, not far from the Brandenburg Gate, to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. He led his final concert at Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on Aug. 19, 1990. He died on Oct. 14 of that year, from a heart attack, at age 72.

Leonard Bernstein, 1955.

Gordon Parks The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Leonard Bernstein, 1954.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Leonard Bernstein, 1955.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Leonard Bernstein and wife Felicia played pianos at home while their children Alexander (left) and Jamie (third from left) joined in, 1956.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein with his wife, actress Felicia Montealegre, and children Alexander and Jamie, at the piano in their home, 1956.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Leonard Bernstein conducting a rehearsal of the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, 1956.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra during a rehearsal for the ‘Mathis der Maler’ performance on December 20-21, Carnegie Hall, New York, 1956.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein walked past Carnegie Hall, where he would be conducting the New York Philharmonic’s performance of Paul Hindemith’s symphony ‘Mathis der Maler’, December 1956.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Leonard Bernstein talking on the phone at Carnegie Hall after a New York Philharmonic rehearsal, December 1956.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Maestro Leonard Bernstein getting a cologne rubdown from his wife, actress Felicia Montealegre, during intermission for his concert conducting the New York Philharmonic orchestra at Carnegie Hall, 1956.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Stephen Sondheim (left) discussed rehearsal schedules for the Broadway opening of West Side Story with composer Leonard Bernstein (center) and choreographer Jerome Robbins (right), 1957.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Leonard Bernstein on opening night for the New York Philharmonic, 1958.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Conductor Leonard Bernstein (left) talking with composer Jules Styne on opening night for the New York Philharmonic, 1958.

.Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Leonard Bernstein and his wife on the opening night of the New York Philharmonic, 1958.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Leonard Bernstein with his wife Felicia, 1958.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Composer Leonard Bernstein dancing with his wife on opening night for the New York Philharmonic, 1958.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Conductor Leonard Bernstein, 1959.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Leonard Bernstein conducting vocal soloists and the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, 1960.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Conductor Leonard Bernstein rehearsed Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony at Carnegie Hall, 1960.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Conductor Leonard Bernstein, First Lady Jackie Kennedy (center) and John D, Rockefeller III (left) at the opening of the Lincoln Center Philharmonic Hall, 1962.

Ralph Morse/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Leonard Bernstein at the podium for the first performance ever at Lincoln Center’s Philharmonic Hall in New York, 1962.

Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Leonard Bernstein, 1962

Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Leonard Bernstein, 1967.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Leonard Bernstein, 1968.

Alfrefd Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Leonard Bernstein: The Maestro in LIFE appeared first on LIFE.

But Benton, like so many others, was not immune to the charms of Martha’s Vineyard, the island off the coast of Massachusetts, and he visited there regularly during the summer, starting in 1920 and going until his death in 1975. During those years Martha’s Vineyard began its transformation from an earthier and more bohemian retreat to a vacation spot for the rich and fashionable.

It was on this island off the coast of Massachusetts that LIFE staff photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt visited for a big story on Benton in the Oct. 3, 1969 issue. Benton could be a colorful and outspoken character, and the story carried the headline “Tom Benton, at 80, Still at War With Boobs and Bores.”

But despite the cantankerous headline, LIFE’s story described an island routine for Benton and his wife Rita that sounded idyllic:

The Bentons rise, as they always have, with the sun which, in the early summer, is 4 a.m., swim and work until noon. Rita fastens herself to the ocean bed as if she had grown out of it, and clams. “I find the clams with my foot,” she says luxuriantly, “and then dig them up with my heel, and reach down and pick them up with my hand. Wonderful!” Tom paints or, when he can discover something before Rita has attended to it herself, putters. This summer it was regluing the bottoms of their lawn chairs. “He spent three weeks,” scoffs Rita. “If he had spent three weeks painting, I could have bought the whole house again.”

While most of the photos in this set were taken for that 1969 story, two others are from 25 years earlier, when Eisenstaedt also snapped a couple frames of Benton while in Martha’s Vineyard working on a story on writer W. Somerset Maugham.

Benton left his mark on the island. The collection of the Martha’s Vineyard Museum includes Benton’s portrait of schooner captain Zeb Tilton, which he painted in front of an audience during a fundraiser for the local hospital. That museum in 2019 also staged an exhibition devoted to Benton.

It’s clear this child of the heartland had a special fondness for the island. A 2014 piece about Benton in Smithsonian Magazine began with his daughter Jessie in Martha’s Vineyard at the family home, and as the story’s writer was admiring a walkway and an artfully designed retaining wall on the way to the local pond, she informed him that Benton had made both himself. The daughter explained, “This was our world.”

Thomas Hart Benton posing next to a self-portrait, 1969.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Artist Thomas Hart Benton with one of his paintings in his studio on Martha’s Vineyard, 1969.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Thomas Hart Benton displaying his work, Martha’s Vineyard, 1969.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Thomas Hart Benton holding a sketch pad, Martha’s Vineyard, 1969.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Thomas Hart Benton sketching in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., 1969.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Painter Thomas Hart Benton sketching near a shore in Martha’s Vineyard, 1969.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Artist Thomas Hart Benton walking along the beach on Martha’s Vineyard, 1969.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Painter Thomas Hart Benton working outdoors on Martha’s Vineyard, 1969.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Artist Thomas Hart Benton and wife at his home on Martha’s Vineyard, 1969.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Artist Thomas Hart Benton with his wife, daughter and granddaughter at his home on Martha’s Vineyard, 1969.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Artist Thomas Hart Benton overseeing construction of his new house on Martha’s Vineyard, 1969.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Portrait of artist Thomas Hart Benton, 1969.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Thomas Hart Benton was visited by writer W. Somerset Maugham at the artist’s studio, 1944.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Thomas Hart Benton, Martha’s Vineyard, 1944.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Thomas Hart Benton in Martha’s Vineyard, 1969.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post Thomas Hart Benton: The Artist’s Days in Martha’s Vineyard appeared first on LIFE.