Shel Hershorn

Herbert Sheldon Hershorn (June 11, 1929 – September 17, 2011) was an American photojournalist who was active in Texas and the Deep South during the civil rights movement. He is best known for his 1966 photograph of the Main Building in the aftermath of the University of Texas tower shooting. In the 1970s, he retired from photojournalism and went on to pursue the hippie lifestyle in New Mexico, where he became a successful furniture maker.

Early life and photojournalism Hershorn was born on June 11, 1929, in Denver, to a jeweler father. His father, who Hershorn described as "patriotic", enlisted him into the United States Navy; while serving, he practiced aerial photography while deployed in Hawaii. He and a friend deserted from the Navy for seven years – the period to be considered legally dead – and skied in Colorado during that time. After sustaining a back injury, his absence was discovered and he was arrested until his return to service was ordered by the Navy.

In 1951, Hershorn worked as an Army hospital photographer in Denver. In 1954, he moved to Dallas, where he worked for the Dallas Times Herald and United Press International (UPI). With UPI, he was assigned to photograph Pat Milliken, a banking executive who had lost $250,000 to embezzlement, who pulled a pistol on him as he rejected being photographed; he destroyed one photograph at Millikens request, though left with one of him sobbing. He later joined the Black Star agency, which syndicated his photographs for National Geographic, Newsweek, Fortune, Life, Look, Playboy, The Saturday Evening Post, Sports Illustrated, and Time, among other publications. and in 1963, he documented the Stand in the Schoolhouse Door, where Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked the doorway at the University of Alabama to prevent African American students from attending. Hershorn also captured the moment when Lee Harvey Oswald was placed into an ambulance following his murder. On August 1, 1966, he took a series of photographs of the aftermath of the University of Texas tower shooting. One of the most notable images from the series, known as Texas Store Window Shattered by Sniper, appeared on the cover of Life; Hershorn later kept the cover hung in his home in New Mexico. After moving to Taos, New Mexico in 1971, Constance Baker Motley with Protesters, Washington, D.C. (Civil rights movement series) (ca. 1962-1963) Governor George Wallace (Stand in the Schoolhouse Door series) (1963) Texas Store Window Shattered by Sniper (UT Tower shooting series) (1966)

Exhibitions "Faces of Texas". Texas Bank and Trust. ca. 1966.

Collections Amon Carter Museum of American Art Briscoe Center for American History National Archives at College Park Time Inc. Picture Collection Wittliff Collections