The Easel

‘Unflinching humanity’ – how photographer Paul Fusco united an America in pain

Fusco was invited into Magnum Photo in 1973, having built a reputation as a photojournalist. His signature style highlighted the human side of major social events – AIDS sufferers, destitute miners, the population affected by the Chernobyl disaster. Most famously he recorded the crowds witnessing the 1968 funeral train of Robert Kennedy – “the silent, staring faces a testimony to a dream not so much deferred as destroyed”.