​ American Girl, 1951

     This month’s image is NOT my photograph, I’m always looking to change up these monthly Blog stories to keep my own mind fresh and keep subscribers interested in the content. This months story revolves around a good friend and photo collector extraordinaire Paul Paletti, owner of the Paul Paletti gallery in Louisville, KY. The Paletti Gallery does handle my work in the commercial gallery world along with some of the most iconic photographers in history. The backstory of American Girl has been much debated as to its evolution. As you will learn, Paletti got as close to the factual side as is humanly possible to the origin of this incredible photograph made in 1951 by Ruth Orkin, seen here. Paletti acquired the photograph thru auction at Sotheby’s Auction house simply because no one place a bid on the very large original photograph. The story really centers around the young woman who is the focus of this image, Ninalee (Jinx) Craig.  Many times I try and line up some part of a character’s life to coincide with my Blog, in this case Ninalee “Jinx” Craig Allen born on Nov. 6th, 1927 nearly 95 years ago. Sadly, Ms Craig passed away on May 2, 2018. Special thanks to my dear friend Paul Paletti for allowing me to share the backstory of one of the 20th centuries most famous photographs !

     “Jinx” as she preferred to be called because it sounded exciting (her words) graduated from Sara Lawrence College with a degree in art history. At age 23 she quit her job as a nursery school teacher and took third-class accommodations by ship from New York to travel throughout Europe by herself, visiting France, Spain and Italy. Craig met fellow traveler and 29 year old documentary photographer Ruth Orkin by chance staying at the same Hotel Berchielli in Florence, at the time costing $1 a night. The two struck up a connection in the hallway of the hotel and Orkin asked if she could take my picture. Orkin said, “If I get it into the Herald Tribune I get $15” and I thought that sounded like fun. Craig tells the story, we went out the next morning and we were just horsing around. We were two young, carefree women, playing with the idea of a woman traveling alone. Craig, a striking woman standing 6 feet tall and would stand out in the streets of Florence and felt quite comfortable “in my own skin”.

    I was in Toronto teaching a Silver printing workshop at the same time Paul Paletti came to town for some R&R. I would soon learn Paul had arranged to meet Jinx for lunch at the Four Seasons hotel where he spent three hours with her on January 4, 2015. During that lunch Paul would share with Jinx the unusual story of how he acquired the large 30″x40″ rendering of American Girl. Jinx would counter with the factual backstory to that amazing photograph in what is detailed below. Paul would come away with another little known fact that Jinx married Achille Passi in 1959, a Venetian count and cousin to one of the two men on the scooter seen in the lower right of the photograph. After living in Milan for a decade she divorced Passi in the early 1970s and returned to New York where she met Robert Ross Craig, a Canadian businessman. Craig himself coincidentally also had a connection to the American Girl photograph whose central character he would soon marry, hence the name, Ninalee Jinx Craig. Craig knew the other of the two men sitting on the scooter parked near her in the photo. “My God,” he told her, “that’s my business partner in Italy, that’s Carlo Marchi”. At the time in 1951, 23 year old Jinx would have no idea, one day she would be connected, through separate marriages, with the two men on the scooter !

     The following text is taken from various sources close to Orkin and an interview with Jinx done in 2015 by the Guardian which accompanied this photo of Jinx who is wearing the exact bright orange shall she wore 60 years ago in the now iconic American Girl photograph. 

    August 22, 1951, on the Piazza della Repubblica in Florence, photographer Ruth Orkin snapped the photograph that made her famous. The image, of a young woman walking through a thicket of men, was considered risqué in its time. Since then it has become one of the most famous and controversial pictures ever taken, reproduced in countless posters, books, magazines, calendars and postcards. The image is such a perfect and classical composition that it has brought some critics to question whether the scene was staged. Orkin never hid the fact that the shot was not entirely spontaneous, and spoke of having directed some minor elements of the scene. Whether “real” or not, the image remains an icon of street photography to this day. The photograph was captured by a 29-year-old Orkin, an aspiring photojournalist traveling alone in Italy. In Florence she met Ninalee “Jinx” Allen Craig, a fellow American who became the model for a series Orkin originally titled Don’t Be Afraid to (over) Travel Alone. The series was based on their joint experience as women traveling alone in Europe in the 1950s. Orkin photographed Craig shopping in the markets, crossing traffic, riding a carriage and flirting at a cafe. By chance the two came upon the now famous pack of men. Orkin turned around and photographed Craig behind her. “I clutched my shawl to me because that sheaths the body,” says Craig. “It was my protection, my shield…I was walking through a sea of men.” Craig today admits, “I was enjoying every minute of it. They were Italian and I love Italians.” Orkin asked Craig to walk through again, and with that she captured the famous image. It took only two exposures. American Girl in Italy was first published in Cosmopolitan magazine in September 1952 with an article titled “When you travel alone…tips on money, men and morals.” Later it was picked up by Kodak to encourage young photographers. Craig first saw the famous photograph when she arrived at Grand Central Station and looked up to see herself larger than life, spread across the wall in a huge Kodak display.  

     Both Jinx and Orkin insisted that they had come upon the men at the piazza serendipitously, and that nothing had been posed. Jinx recalled, “Orkin ran ahead and “took one picture, asked me to back up, and took a second. That’s all that was done at that location, two pictures.” It took about 35 seconds. Orkin did ask the men on the scooter to tell the other men not to look at the camera as Jinx passed by. It’s clear from the photo of Orkin’s contact sheet of 35mm film, that only two photos were taken from the area, # 8 & 9. Orkin did have the good sense to change her position, thus creating a dynamic composition to the final shot. # 10 frame shows Jinx riding on the Vespa scooter, essentially eliminating any ideas of her feeling threatened that morning.

   As one might imagine in today’s climate where someone will find fault where others do not. After Orkin’s photograph became famous, the man supposedly pictured grabbing his crotch to the left of Jinx, was censored and airbrushed out for many years. But Jinx insists the men were harmless. “Very few of those men had jobs,” she explains, “Italy was recovering from the war and had really been devastated by it … I can tell you that it wasn’t the intent of any man there to harass me.” “Some people want to use it as a symbol of harassment of women, but that’s what we’ve been fighting all these years,” says the American girl, at the time 85 years old. 

     One simply never knows what can become of chance circumstances, as we will learn in next month’s Blog coming December 1st.  Until then, enjoy the Holiday Season !!