Signed photograph by Aaron Tycko

Los Angeles, 1933. Signed by the photographer, [Aaron] Tycko of Los Angeles. Prominently signed “Albert Einstein. 1933” below image. Rarely seen photograph of the famous scientist, taken during his last visit to Southern California in January 1933, the month Hitler took power in his native Germany. During the five-month trip Einstein (1879-1955) spent most of his time at the Mount Wilson Observatory and the California Institute of Technology, where he was offered a position. Later that year he renounced his German citizenship and accepted a professorship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey.

Tycko (1893-1975) was based in Los Angeles and often photographed Einstein, along with other Hollywood icons of the early twentieth century, including Irving Berlin. At the time this photograph was taken, Tycko also shot a well-known photograph of Einstein with his wife Elsa. Interestingly, Tycko is mention in Einstein’s FBI files, because a Hollywood informant reported that the photographer believed Einstein was a communist. This informant contended that Tycko thought Einstein was “the brain that was setting up Hollywood in the 1930’s for the big Communist push . . . He was one of the most dangerous and powerful figures in what has become the Communist movement.”

Jerome, The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret War Against the World’s Most Famous Scientist.