Harrison Forman (1904-1978) was an American photographer and journalist. He wrote for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' and ''

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...

''. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

he reported from China and interviewed

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in

Oriental Philosophy Eastern philosophy or Asian philosophy includes the various philosophies that originated in East and South Asia, including Chinese philosophy, Japanese philosophy, Korean philosophy, and Vietnamese philosophy; which are dominant in East Asia, ...

. Forman and his wife Sandra had a son, John, who later changed the spelling of his name to Foreman, and a daughter, Brenda-Lu Forman, who collaborated with her father on one of his books, and also wrote a series of children's books on given names. His collection of diaries and fifty thousand photographs are now at American Geographical Society Library at

University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UW–Milwaukee, UWM, or Milwaukee) is a public urban research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is the largest university in the Milwaukee metropolitan area and a member of the University of Wiscons ...

. Forman who travelled to the

Tibetan Plateau The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the Ti ...

in 1932 and filmed the

Panchen Lama The Panchen Lama () is a tulku of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. Panchen Lama is one of the most important figures in the Gelug tradition, with its spiritual authority second only to Dalai Lama. Along with the council of high lamas, he ...

at the

Labrang Monastery Labrang Monastery (; Chinese: Lāboléng Sì, 拉卜楞寺) is one of the six great monasteries of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. Its formal name is ''Genden Shédrup Dargyé Trashi Gyésu khyilwé Ling'' (). Labrang is located in Xiah ...

Xiahe Xiahe (; ) is a county in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu province, the People's Republic of China, bordering Qinghai province to the west. It is home to the famed Labrang Tibetan Buddhist monastery, one of the largest Tibetan Buddhist ...

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...

province, served as the Tibetan technical expert on Frank Capra's

Lost Horizon ''Lost Horizon'' is a 1933 novel by English writer James Hilton. The book was turned into a film, also called ''Lost Horizon'', in 1937 by director Frank Capra. It is best remembered as the origin of Shangri-La, a fictional utopian lamaser ...

film of 1937.

Books

*1931: ''Do You Want to Fly?''. Shanghai: The Comacrib Press *1935: ''Through Forbidden Tibet''. New York: Longmans & Co.; London: Longmans, Green *1942: ''Horizon Hunter: the adventures of a modern Marco Polo''. London: Robert Hale *1945: ''Report from Red China''. New York: Holt *1948: ''Changing China''. New York: Crown Publishers *1952: ''How to make Money with your Camera''. New York: McGraw-Hill *1964: ''The Land and People of Nigeria''. Philadelphia: Lippincott (with Brenda-Lu Forman)

References

External links

1978 deaths 1904 births American photojournalists National Geographic Society The New York Times visual journalists Journalists from Wisconsin Artists from Milwaukee University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni 20th-century American journalists American male journalists American expatriates in China {{US-journalist-1900s-stub