RIDGEFIELD, CT.- The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum presents Paul Fusco: Bitter Fruit, on view through February 25, 2007. Paul Fusco's exhibition of photographs, Bitter Fruit, documents the funerals of US soldiers killed in Iraq in his personal protest against government attempts to downplay the costs of war. His exhibition of 46 moving photographs is on view at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

“All wars produce casualties,” writes Fusco in his introduction to the exhibition. “From the beginning of the Iraq war, the great 'spin' has been that only the enemy suffers casualties… Herein are a few of those families that have had to endure the bitter truth and the intolerable loss of this war.”

Fusco's images of the other victims of the Iraq war—families left behind when a soldier dies—are powerful. Bitter Fruit is intended to be an antidote to what the photographer argues is the Bush administration's deliberate attempt to deny the US casualties of war. “The most obvious example of that effort,” argues Fusco, “was closing Dover Air Force Base to the press—let no one see the rows of flag—draped coffins ready to be shipped to grieving families.” Bitter Fruit is a moving tribute to these soldiers and families.

Paul Fusco was born in Leominster, Massachusetts, and currently lives in New Jersey. He was a war photographer in the United States Army Signal Corps in Korea in 1951-53. After the war, he studied photojournalism at Ohio University. He worked as a staff photographer for Look Magazine, documenting social issues in the US and around the world. Paul Fusco: Bitter Fruit is an exhibition organized and circulated by Magnum Photos, Inc.