Jesse Owens in the 4 x100 meter relay Olympics Berlin 1936 screen capture and color 2016 Canvas Print

"James Cleveland 'Jesse' Owens (September 12, 1913 - March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete and four-time Olympic gold medalist in the 1936 games.

Owens specialized in the sprints and the long jump and was recognized in his lifetime as 'perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history.' His achievement of setting three world records and tying another in less than an hour at the 1935 Big Ten track meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has been called 'the greatest 45 minutes ever in sport' and has never been equalled.

At the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, Owens won international fame with four gold medals: 100 meters, 200 meters, long jump, and 4 - 100 meter relay. He was the most successful athlete at the games and, as a Black man, was credited with single-handedly crush[ing] Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy,' although he 'wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either.'"

I first became obsessed with photography and motion pictures while growing up in post WW2 Manila in the Philippine Islands in the late 1940's/early 1950's. Film noirs were a particular influence. But my first love remains the theater. I acted in numerous amateur productions from 1958 to 1978. In 1979 I earned a MA in drama from the University of Arizona; earlier getting a BA in English from the University of Minnesota, where I co-founded the first film society on campus and ran it for four years. While at the U of A, I studied with the master black and white photo essayist W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978) the last year of his life. I am the last person cited in Jim Hughes' definitive biography of Gene, as I wrote about attending his final...