May 20, 1907

Carl Mydans (May 20, 1907 to August 16, 2004) was a Life magazine photographer who traveled the world for that publication. Mydans took this of Gjon Mili, a fellow photographer.


The photo of Gjon Mili and his cat Blackie, is dated 1944. Some say Mydans created the original LOLCAT, in 1936 and that the evidence is at this link:
http://hnipexperience.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/the-original-lol-cat-and-other-discoveries/
I however would not connect that LOL garbage to anyone of some artistic stature. 

His New York Times obituary was titled:

Carl Mydans, Life Photographer Who Chronicled Wars and the Depression, Dies at 97

and the same article summed up the significance of Carl Mydans this way:

..... Resourceful and unruffled, Mr. Mydans sent back pictures of combat that even now define how we remember World War II, Korea and other conflicts. Like Robert Capa and W. Eugene Smith, he adopted the perspective of an infantryman as the best way of showing what war felt like.