{"id":311,"date":"2024-07-10T12:52:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-10T12:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.withoutsanity.com\/?p=311"},"modified":"2025-04-25T14:50:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T14:50:14","slug":"behind-the-picture-hansel-mieths-wet-unhappy-monkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.withoutsanity.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/10\/behind-the-picture-hansel-mieths-wet-unhappy-monkey\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the Picture: Hansel Mieth\u2019s Wet, Unhappy Monkey"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is, without question, one of the most famous, most frequently reproduced animal photographs ever made. But photographer Hansel Mieth<\/a>\u2018s own attitude toward her 1938 portrait of a sodden rhesus monkey<\/a> hunched in the water off of Puerto Rico was, to put it bluntly, conflicted. In fact, the German-born Mieth (1909-1998) memorably called the creature in the picture \u201cthe monkey on my back.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Mieth explained in a 1993 interview with John Loengard<\/a>, published in his book, LIFE Photographers: What They Saw<\/a><\/em>, she made the photograph while covering a Harvard Medical School primate study on tiny Cayo Santiago, off the east coast of Puerto Rico:<\/p>\n

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One afternoon all the doctors were away [Mieth told Loengard], and a little kid came running to me and said, \u201cA monkey\u2019s in the water.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I came down, and that monkey was really going hell-bent for something. . . . I threw my Rolleiflex on my back and swam out. Finally, I was facing the monkey. I don\u2019t think he liked me, but he sat on that coral reef, and I took about a dozen shots.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

When she got back to New York, Mieth learned that the joke around the LIFE offices was that she\u2019d produced a striking portrait of Henry Luce, the founder and publisher of TIME, LIFE, Fortune<\/em> and other magazines: evidently, some of her colleagues felt that the rhesus in the water looked like their boss. When asked by Loengard, six decades later, if she felt the portrait did resemble Luce, Mieth was diplomatic.<\/p>\n

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I didn\u2019t see Luce that much. He had lots of other things to do rather than talk with photographers. . . . But I suppose it does, in a way. It all depends on what kind of mood you are in. To me it looks like the monkey\u2019s depicting the state of the world at the time. It was dark and somber and angry. There were a lot of dark clouds swirling around. I heard from many people that they were scared when they looked at it.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Today, the monkey on Mieth\u2019s back still commands our gaze, inviting us perhaps challenging us to project our own fears, anxieties and speculations on to a picture, and a primate, that never gets old.<\/p>\n

FINAL NOTE: While a half-dozen lesser pictures from the assignment in Puerto Rico were published in the Jan. 2, 1939, issue of LIFE<\/a>, Mieth\u2019s now-iconic monkey photo appeared a few weeks later, in the Jan. 16 issue<\/a> accompanied by the caption, \u201cA misogynist seeks solitude in the Caribbean off Puerto Rico.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the magazine, a primatologist explained that \u201cthe chatter of innumerable female monkeys had impelled this neurotic bachelor to seek escape from the din\u201d by fleeing the jungle and making his way into the waves.<\/p>\n

Seventy-five years later, that particular theory about how and why the rhesus was out there in the water still sounds as reasonable as any other.<\/p>\n

Ben Cosgrove is the Editor of LIFE.com<\/em><\/p>\n

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A rhesus monkey in Puerto Rico, 1938.<\/p>\n

Hansel Mieth\u2014The LIFE Picture Collection\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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A baby rhesus monkey climbed on the chest of Michael Tomlin, a primatologist who cared for a rhesus colony in Humacao, Puerto Rico, 1938.<\/p>\n

Hansel Mieth\/Life Picture Collection\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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This photo, which ran at a full page in LIFE in 1939, was labelled \u201cRhesus: Life Size\u201d to show readers how small the monkeys were.<\/p>\n

Hansel Mieth\/Life Picture Collection\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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A rhesus monkey ate a flower in Humacao, Puerto Rico, 1939<\/p>\n

Hansel Mieth\/Life Picture Collection\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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A rhesus monkey searched for food in Cayo Santiago, Humacao, Puerto Rico, 1938.<\/p>\n

Hansel Mieth\/Life Picture Collection\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Rhesus monkeys searched for food on Cayo Santiago, Humacao, Puerto Rico, 1938.<\/p>\n

Hansel Mieth\/Life Picture Collection\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The post Behind the Picture: Hansel Mieth\u2019s Wet, Unhappy Monkey<\/a> appeared first on LIFE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is, without question, one of the most famous, most frequently reproduced animal photographs ever made. But photographer Hansel Mieth\u2018s own attitude toward her 1938 portrait of a sodden rhesus monkey hunched in the water off of Puerto Rico was, to put it bluntly, conflicted. In fact, the German-born Mieth (1909-1998) memorably called the creature…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withoutsanity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withoutsanity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withoutsanity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withoutsanity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withoutsanity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.withoutsanity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":320,"href":"http:\/\/www.withoutsanity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions\/320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withoutsanity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withoutsanity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withoutsanity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withoutsanity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}