EUGENE GOLDBECK 1892-1986. In his long lifetime, Goldbeck created a huge archive of historic pictures using the number 10 Cirkut camera. He is especially noted for large group photography. No one before had coped with such numbers, while at the same time making everyone in the group facially recognisable: the big Cirkuts are the only cameras which can do this. He took this much further by arranging his subjects in vast tableaux; ships companies were festooned on the superstructure of warships, mechanised armies included with all their weaponry, affinity groups designed into “living insignias”. His largest -ever group was over 20000 airmen arranged to resemble the Air Force emblem. He also documented huge gatherings less formally but equally effectively: the mass baptisms, bathing beauty contests, baseball crowds, and political conventions of his era have poignant nostalgia of generations now gone. His archive is to be found at the Harry Ransom Centre, University of Texas. This institution published in 1985 an extraordinairy book “The Panoramic Photography of E.O. Goldbeck” : containing some of his finest images full size as colossal foldouts, it was very expensive and has long been out of print.