Beyond the veil: photographs can be more powerful than art

There’s a simple, crushing human truth in Elliott Erwitt’s great photograph of Jackie Kennedy, taken at JFK’s funeral, that eludes Andy Warhol’s silkscreen images of the same day

How can you tell the truth about history in a visual image? The question is raised for me by the news that Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt is to receive an award for his outstanding contribution to photography at the Sony world photography awards, and will have a solo show at Somerset House this spring.

All well deserved. But one picture by Erwitt especially haunts me. In November 1963, America’s assassinated President John F Kennedy was buried at Arlington military cemetery.

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