Stanley Zachary Rosenfeld was born on July 27, 1913 and at an early age began to work with his father in the world of marine photography. He died on December 23, 2002. (New York Times obituary »)
Stanley attended two years at New York University on Washington Square in Manhattan until he began to work at the studio full time in the early 1930s.
In 1939 he married Ruth Landesman (1918-1979) and moved to Manhattan. They had two sons, Richard and Jonathan.
Stanley worked in the field and in the darkroom. From an early age, he drove the Rosenfeld chase boat, FOTO. In World War II, Stanley became a combat photographer in the Pacific. After the war, he continued on at the Rosenfeld studio at a time when marine photography became more interesting with the postwar burst of work.
Upon the death of Morris in 1968, Stanley continued the business as M. Rosenfeld and Sons. In the late 1960s, Ruth Rosenfeld began to assist her husband not only in the office, but out on the water, sometimes driving the chase boat. Ruth fell ill in the early 1970s and died in 1979.
In 1981, Stanley elected to close the studio, putting the collection in storage. The collection, which comprises images from 1881 to 1981, was offered for sale and bought by Mystic Seaport in 1984.
Stanley continued working and spent more time abroad. This led to a chance meeting with his future wife, Heather Hanley, an amateur photographer and travel writer and they were married in 1986.
Stanley’s travels have taken him through the waterways of Europe and most of the European countries. In addition, he has visited Haiti, Turkey, Scandinavia, the Caribbean, the Galapagos and has spent significant time in Italy. He has traveled widely in the US and Canada.
The fascinating collection of color transparencies by Stanley contains a wide range of subjects. Mystic Seaport is the repository of many of these approximately 200,000 to 250,000 images belonging to him and kept in archival storage under a licensing agreement.
Stanley Rosenfeld has been a prolific writer and currently has ready for publication one book on white marble carving, done with Peter Rockwell, and one titled A Point of View, of color marine photography.
His book, A Century Under Sail, first published in 1984, has been through various printings. It was written as a tribute to black and white marine photography. It covers a hundred years of maritime history and change and is a unique photographic record. A Century Under Sail was recently reprinted in hard cover by Mystic Seaport.
Stanley Zachary Rosenfeld was born on July 27, 1913 and at an early age began to work with his father in the world of marine photography. He died on December 23, 2002. (New York Times obituary »)