Paul Fusco worked as a photographer with the United States Army Signal Corps in Korea from 1951 to 1953. He then studied photojournalism at Ohio University, where he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1957. He moved to New York City and started his career as a staff photographer with Look magazine.
Fusco moved to Mill Valley, California, in 1970. After Look closed down in 1971, Fusco approached Magnum Photos, becoming an associate in 1973 and a full member the following year. His photography has been published widely in major US magazines, including Time, Life, Newsweek, the New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, and Psychology Today, as well as in other publications worldwide.
His most acclaimed work was the result of a Look assignment in 1968, when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated and his body was carried by train from New York to Washington, DC. Many of those unpublished images eventually appeared in the book Paul Fusco: RFK (and two more expanded editions), inspired an HBO documentary, and were exhibited around the world. A hugely successful installation of the photos, known as The Train, was shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2018.