Ariel Varges

• Name — Ariel Lowe Varges • Born — 11 June 1890 • Birthplace — Chicago, Illinois • Died — 27 December 1972 • Place of death — Norwich, Connecticut • Occupation — photographer/newsreel cinematographer

Ariel Lowe Varges was born on June 11, 1890, in Chicago, Illinois. His grandfather Charles was born in Germany and emigrated to the United States in the 1850s. Shortly after his graduation from high school Ariel became a photographer for the Chicago Examiner. Around 1911 he moved to New York City and started working for the Hearst newspapers in this city. Varges was one of the first American still photographers who took up a movie camera. He shot his first film in 1914 while covering the Mexican War together with his colleague Ansel Wallace. From 1914, Varges filmed for the Hearst-Selig News Pictorial and he remained a globe trotting war photographer for the Hearst newsreels throughout his career. Varges came to wartime Europe in December 1914. By using his close contacts with Sir Thomas Lipton, he got on a ship for the Serbian front and filmed the war in the Balkans. Varges was by all accounts the first foreign cameraman to film the Great War in Serbia. From 1916, Varges became an official cinematographer for the British Army. He filmed the operations of the Expeditionary Force at Salonika (Thessaloniki), Greece, and later covered the war with the British army in the Middle East and Mesopotamia (Iraq). For his photographic work during World War I Varges was appointed an honorary member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Post-war, Ariel Varges' name and reputation became a synonym in the American newspapers for the globetrotting war photographer. He was the first foreign cameraman to film communist leader Trotzky. In the 1920s and 1930s Varges covered wars in China and Ethiopia for the Hearst newsreels. In the 1950s he headed the photographic laboratory of Hearst's newsreel show News of the Day. Ariel Varges died at the age of 82 on December 27, 1972, in Norwich, Connecticut. He was buried at Preston Cemetery.