Recently deceased, Elliot Erwitt, a French photographer of Russian-Jewish origin, emigrated to the United States to flee Nazism. In Hollywood he discovered his love for cameras, and his is one of the most unique looks in the world of photography. “His humor is not a laughit is an ironic look that makes us smile, his photographs make us feel at ease.”

This is how Andrea Holzherr, global director of exhibitions at Magnum Photos and curator of the exhibition, defines it.Elliot Erwitt: The Human Comedy‘, which the Canal Foundation dedicates to him until August 18 in Madrid. For him, making people laugh was one of the greatest achievements there could be. And that’s how he saw the world, looking for the perfect frame.

As in the well-known photograph in which two workers appear cleaning a wall that, in front of their lens, it becomes another scene, in which it appears that the jet of water is knocking down a sign. Erwitt said that dogs were like people, but with more hair. Precisely, he dedicated a good part of his work to animals, some with two legs, like the geese that star in one of the large format photos.

Also, to those animals that we humans are. Those of us who look for a kiss that does not arrive, those of us who secretly kiss to seal our love for life or however long it lasts, those of us who dance until our feet hurt and do what we can since we came to this, which is to live without an instruction manual. All these moments captured by the camera of this photography genius who is a fan of Man Ray’s work, for example.