Remembering Jack
Jacques Lowe
(Reviewer - Dr. Alma Bond)
2003 Bulfinch Press
ISBN: 0821228498

A collection of photographs that illuminate the charismatic Kennedys.

Remembering Jack brims with frozen moments in time & space that transport the reader back to a more innocent era. Seldom does one encounter a photography book that generates such immediate joy, sadness, & awe. It belongs next to A Thousand Days as a reminder of what once was & will never be again. Yet the Kennedys remain -- refusing to fade away from America's center stage.

Senior Reviewer Dr. Alma Bond writes:

Remembering Jack is a visual feast for Kennedy lovers. Jacques Lowe photographed John F. Kennedy from the mid-1950s through his presidency. Lowe was Kennedy's personal photographer, the only professional permitted to take pictures of the ‘royal family’ in The White House.

Remembering Jack features more than six hundred pictures, half of which are previously unpublished. Ironically, all of his forty thousand negatives, which were housed in a vault in the World Trade Center, were destroyed on September 11, 2001, an eerie finale for the family afflicted with The Kennedy Curse. For this book, fine reproductions were created from existing prints & contact sheets, in some cases of images Lowe never printed.

It is said that one picture is worth a thousand words. Remembering Jack is proof of how true that statement is. We are given glimpses into the inner lives of the Kennedys that would be most difficult to capture in words. For example, Jack had a unique kind of sly way of looking at Jackie that suggests admiration mixed with love. In my opinion such a look cannot be faked.

Many of the photographs are absolutely breathtaking. More than one made me gasp with its beauty, for example the photograph of Jacqueline Kennedy in her ephemeral elegance & ravishing gown at one of the inaugural balls. Another dazzling photo is of Jackie at the Elysée Palace. Looking guileless, wide-eyed, & enchanting, she captivated President de Gaulle. From the photo, we can understand why.

The photos of Jack & Jackie, & their children are of a loving family, & suggest that despite Jack's philandering, the John F. Kennedys would only have gotten closer, had he lived. In one photo, Jackie is cuddling a sleeping Caroline, while Jack is lovingly looking on. The “famous threesome,” as they were called, seem so happy together in a series of contact sheets that it makes one grieve even more for their loss.

Lowe has also caught the spirit of Robert Kennedy as no one ever has before. The photos of him in 1958 tenderly gazing at his son David whom he is holding, & praying with five little Kennedys by the children's bedside, are heartbreaking, & bring Robert, the man, to life for us in a new way.

One of my favorites is a picture of five Kennedy women, Jackie, Eunice, Joan, Jean & Ethel, who are stomping for Kennedy's election in 1960. The women are lined up on the patio at Hyannisport in similar positions, all except Joan bedecked in the obligatory pearls. I also enjoyed a humorous photo of Robert & Ethel's legs on November 8, 1960, with the rest of their bodies hidden by election booth curtains. Another one I like a lot is of Kennedy at the White House leaning over some papers at his desk on his first morning as President. The story goes that he then summoned an aid & said, ‘What the hell do I do now?’

There is a historic photo of Kennedy at his memorable meeting with Kruschev, who is wearing several medals. Kennedy tapped two star-shaped medals pinned to the Russian's chunky grey suit, & asked, “What are these?” Kruschev replied, “They are Lenin Peace Medals.” Kennedy, said with a wry smile, “I hope you keep them.”

& of course, there are the moments we would like to forget of the unbearably sad Kennedys following behind JFK's coffin down Pennsylvania Avenue. Jacques Lowe's camera focused on the phalanx of Kennedys leading the solemn procession, followed by the rulers of the world. The master photographer took one last picture of Jack's burnished casket reflecting a setting sun, & engraved it forever on our hearts.

The book includes an introduction by Tom Wolfe, Lowe's friend & photo subject for 40 years. Hugh Sidey, who was traveling with Kennedy when he was assassinated, writes the commentary.

Thomasina Lowe very movingly describes her father's work & legacy: “I was in my father's studio just a few blocks from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, when my world and the world we live in changed forever. Within hours of the plane hitting Tower 1, news anchors began a refrain: “You'll remember where you were on 9/11, the way people remember where they were the day Kennedy was shot.” Countless times I had heard people tell my father where they were when JFK died, their recollections an expression of how deeply they had been affected by their president's death. Four decades later, two tragic moments in American history intersected for me in a very personal way. Deep within the rubble of what used to be the World Trade Center sat a safe filled with more than forty thousand negatives of President John F. Kennedy and his family. Those slips of film were my father's life work, each one a reminder of an era when, as my father often said, “People still believed in something.”

“There are no words to describe how attached my father was to his Kennedy negatives. They defined who he was as a person and as a photographer. When he moved to Europe in 1968, he purchased an extra plane ticket so they could sit at his side while traveling. Later, back in New York again to set up his studio, he tried to have them insured, but no insurance company dared. Those images were priceless, their value beyond calculation. So he stored them in a fireproof bank vault in the World Trade Center. I went with him on countless occasions to the J.P. Morgan Chase Bank vault to retrieve or return negatives. There was always an air of solemnity in the room when he reached for one of the many manila envelopes as though what we were about to see and touch would bring us closer to something historic. Back out on the street, walking up West Broadway, he clutched his treasure trove until it was safe and sound in his studio. In his cautiousness, however, he could not have foreseen 9/11. And not even that fortified safe tucked in a vault could protect his work from the inferno that raged within the World Trade Center. Although 5 World Trade Center still stood when the blaze was extinguished, it was condemned to demolition, the safe irretrievable. I campaigned for the rubble to be sifted; months passed and I waited.

“Then, early in February 2002, the bank called. “Your safe has been found.” I went to claim it, clinging to the hope that some content, anything, might have been rescued. To my surprise and horror, what I found was a safe, surrealistically intact, with its door open and a symmetrical hole where the lock had been. I peered in. It was empty. America lost its innocence with the assassination of President Kennedy, tragically followed by the deaths of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Amid that turmoil, my father lost his belief in the United States, which had welcomed him with open arms after his escape from Nazi Germany. The sadness and disappointment that followed the deaths of his heroes prompted him to return to Europe in 1968. Still, my father gained comfort from a belief that his Kennedy archives would serve as a reminder to Americans of their wonderful potential.

“In May 2001, I lost my father. Following his death, I pledged to uphold his legacy by sharing with others the wonder of his work and the story it tells of a president we loved because, in my father's words, “he empowered each one of us to believe we could make a difference.” Although my father's collection...has been destroyed, all is not lost. Many of his choice prints remain, as well as all the contact sheets. With the help of modern technology, we have been able to retrieve the images for this book, many of them published here for the first time. We have done this, in part, as a tribute to my father. We have also done it as a tribute to a proud and hopeful chapter in our history.”

Remembering Jack is a fitting tribute to this marvelous photographer & to a remarkable family.

Other Kennedy book reviews are:
The Kennedy Women
The Kennedy Men
An Unfinished Life
Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years
Janet and Jackie
Mrs. Kennedy Goes Abroad
(11/16/03)

Dr. Alma Bond
2003©Alma Bond
A RebeccasReads.Com Sr. Associate Reviewer

A RebeccasReads author featured in Authors & Books

Reviewer's Bio:
Dr. Alma Halbert Bond is the author of ten published books, including:
The Deadly Jigsaw Puzzle;
The Tree That Could Fly;
Tales Of Psychology (2004);
I Married Dr. Jekyll And Woke Up Mrs. Hyde (2000);
The Autobiography Of Maria Callas, A Novel (1998);
On Becoming A Grandparent: A Diary of Family Discovery (1994);
Who Killed Virginia Woolf? A Psychobiography (1998);
Profiles of Key West (1996).

She recently recorded her new manuscript, Old Age Is A Terminal Illness, as an audio book.

She is also the author of a just published children's picture book called The Tree That Could Fly.

Dr. Bond teaches Psychology & Writing online at WriterSchool.