John L. Gaunt (June 4, 1924 in Syracuse, New York – October 26, 2007 in

Desert Hot Springs, California Desert Hot Springs is a city in Riverside County, California, United States. The city is located within the Coachella Valley geographic region. The population was 25,938 at the 2010 census, up from 16,582 at the 2000 census. The city has exp ...

) was an American photographer. He won the 1955

Pulitzer Prize for Photography The Pulitzer Prize for Photography was one of the American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. It was inaugurated in 1942 and replaced by two photojournalism prizes in 1968: the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography and "Pulitzer Pri ...

. Born as the only child to a stockbroker, Gaunt moved and grew up in

Hermosa Beach, California Hermosa Beach (''Hermosa'', Spanish language, Spanish for "Beautiful") is a beachfront city in Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California, United States. Its population was 19,728 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. Census. The c ...

. Growing up with his future wife, Mary Elise, he graduated from

Redondo Union High School Redondo Union High School (RUHS) is a public high school in Redondo Beach, California. Redondo Union High School is a part of the Redondo Beach Unified School District. All residents of Redondo Beach are zoned to Redondo Union. In addition, resi ...

. He served in the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

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 opposing ...

. He studied at Compton College and graduated from

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

with a degree in zoology. Gaunt married Mary Elise in the late 1940s, and the two had two daughters: Jane and Abigail. He worked for the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'' from October 1950 to 1988. His 1955 award-winning photo entitled "Tragedy by the Sea" depicted the morning of 2 April 1954 when his neighbors, young Hermosa couple John and Lillian McDonald, stood together beside a violent sea that had just taken their infant son, Michael, away. The photo made the front page of the ''Los Angeles Times'' the following morning. As well as the Pulitzer, the photograph won an

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...

Managing Editor's Award, and a prize from the California-Nevada Associated Press.

References

External links

* 20th-century American photographers Pulitzer Prize for Photography winners People from Desert Hot Springs, California People from Hermosa Beach, California Artists from Syracuse, New York 1924 births 2007 deaths Journalists from California Journalists from New York (state) 20th-century American journalists American male journalists United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II University of Southern California alumni Photographers from New York (state) Photographers from California American photojournalists {{US-photographer-stub