With over 100 Life Magazine covers to his credit, Philippe Halsman was one of the leading portrait photographers of his time. After studying electrical engineering at the University of Dresden, Halsman relocated to Paris in 1930 and began his career as a portrait photographer. A mere two years after opening his first studio, his work began appearing in magazines such as Vogue, Vu and Voila. In 1940, Philippe Halsman arrived in New York City on an emergency visa obtained though family friend Albert Einstein, and shortly after began an enduring and productive relationship with Life Magazine. Halsman’s disarming ability to expose the unguarded personality of his subjects—often reveled by asking his subjects to jump—made him one of the most sought after portraists in the U.S. Some of his subjects include Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Kennedy, and Richard Nixon. In addition to his distinguished career in photojournalism, Halsman was also a pioneer of unorthodox techniques in experimental photography, particularly visible in his thirty-year collaboration with surrealist artist Salvador Dali.