The Enduring Images of Visalli

Santi Visalli was just launching his career as a photographer in New York when he shot several rolls of film on April 15, 1967. Those photographs documented the more than 125,000 protesters who marched from Central Park to the United Nations to demand an end to U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, with Martin Luther King, Jr. leading the way. He took pictures of young men burning their draft cards in the park, musicians performing anti-war songs, and Rev. King delivering a speech on a scaffolding outside of the United Nations headquarters. 

The Italian agency who represented him used maybe two of the shots, then stuck the rest along with the negatives in a drawer. 

“When I asked for them back, they told me they were lost, and after trying for a few months I gave up,” Visalli recalled. “And after they lost some other ones, I stopped working with them.”

More than half a century later – long after Visalli had retired to Santa Barbara following a career as a highly prolific, globally published photojournalist and fine art photographer of politicians, movie stars, cultural and artistic icons, city scenes and more – he got a phone call out of the blue in 2021. A bank had inherited the old agency’s files. 

“They had a lot of photographs that bore my name, and she wanted information about the history of the long-defunct agency,” said Visalli, now 92. He traded the info for copies of the images they had on hand. When the packages started arriving, he was flabbergasted. 

“When they told me they had pictures of Martin Luther King, Jr. at the U.N., and of Truman Capote’s famous masked Black-and-White Ball in 1966, I started trembling,” he said. “When they arrived, I had goose pimples and tears in my eyes, because it was like finding a lost child. There were so many pictures I’d forgotten I’d taken, and when I saw them back, I started recalling what was happening when I took them.” 

Now, locals can also get a glimpse of at least a part of that era when Visalli’s photo exhibit, Capturing & Recapturing: A Day in the Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., goes on display at the Community Arts Workshop January 23 to February 4, in partnership with the Santa Barbara Arts Collaborative and the MLK Santa Barbara Committee. Twenty of the never-before-seen photos are accompanied by descriptions, all curated by former Santa Barbara Mayor and Board Chair of the Santa Barbara Arts Collaborative Helene Schneider. 

Visalli hopes the exhibit will serve as a history lesson, photo documentary, and conversation starter. 

“I feel proud of the pictures I took back when I was first starting out, which I think were actually very good,” Visalli said. “But the show is not just for me. I want people to see it and to feel the same emotions that I experienced.”

There are only three public dates announced; call Schneider at (805) 453-8550 to arrange other times. 

Visit www.sbcaw.org/upcoming for more information on the exhibit