Outside Geneva, Switzerland, c.1965
Archival pigment print, printed 2025 · Edition of 25
Printed from the photographer’s original negative.
Photographed during travels through Europe in the mid-1960s, a period when Woodward was documenting both cultural figures and the landscapes encountered between assignments.
Bernie Cornfeld, pictured playing backgammon here, was born in Istanbul, raised in Brooklyn, and became one of the most audacious financiers of the postwar era. His company, Investors Overseas Services, built a $2.5 billion mutual fund empire by operating deliberately beyond the reach of any single government — selling American funds to American servicemen in Europe, structured offshore, accountable to no one in particular. His pitch was famously direct: Do you sincerely want to be rich? Most people said yes. When the markets turned in 1970, the empire collapsed. A man named Robert Vesco came in as a white knight and looted what remained, then fled to Cuba. Cornfeld was arrested in Geneva in 1973, jailed for eleven months, and ultimately acquitted of all charges in 1979. My father knew him as a friend — curious, generous, and genuinely good company. He said Bernie was one of the smartest men he ever met. He just operated in a world that hadn't decided yet whether what he was doing was genius or fraud. It turned out to be both.
Released by the Orator Woodward Archive
Please allow two weeks for unframed prints and 4-6 weeks for framed prints.
Negative reference: OW-1965-0042
Outside Geneva, Switzerland, c.1965
Archival pigment print, printed 2025 · Edition of 25
Printed from the photographer’s original negative.
Photographed during travels through Europe in the mid-1960s, a period when Woodward was documenting both cultural figures and the landscapes encountered between assignments.
Bernie Cornfeld, pictured playing backgammon here, was born in Istanbul, raised in Brooklyn, and became one of the most audacious financiers of the postwar era. His company, Investors Overseas Services, built a $2.5 billion mutual fund empire by operating deliberately beyond the reach of any single government — selling American funds to American servicemen in Europe, structured offshore, accountable to no one in particular. His pitch was famously direct: Do you sincerely want to be rich? Most people said yes. When the markets turned in 1970, the empire collapsed. A man named Robert Vesco came in as a white knight and looted what remained, then fled to Cuba. Cornfeld was arrested in Geneva in 1973, jailed for eleven months, and ultimately acquitted of all charges in 1979. My father knew him as a friend — curious, generous, and genuinely good company. He said Bernie was one of the smartest men he ever met. He just operated in a world that hadn't decided yet whether what he was doing was genius or fraud. It turned out to be both.
Released by the Orator Woodward Archive
Please allow two weeks for unframed prints and 4-6 weeks for framed prints.
Negative reference: OW-1965-0042
