This Pulitzer-Prize winning photo documents the raising of a second U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. (Photo by Joe Rosenthal, The Associated Press) [Click to enlarge]

NASHVILLE -- Cyma Rubin, curator of an exhibit of Pulitzer Prize-winning photos now on display at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, wants to set the record straight:

The photo of U.S. marines raising the American flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima was not, repeat not, staged.

The photo, by Associated Press reporter Joe Rosenthal, has been dogged since it first appeared by stories that Rosenthal had staged it. Even though it won the coveted Pulitzer Prize and was the model for the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Va., it hasn't been able to shake the perception that it wasn't an authentic photo of a real event.

Here is the story as Rubin told it during a recent media preview at the Frist:

When U.S. Marines first captured Mount Suribachi, a flag was raised, with a much shorter pole than the one in Rosenthal's photo. An official Marine Corps photographer, Sgt. Lou Lowery, documented the event. Later, as Lowery was heading down the mountain and Rosenthal was heading up, Lowery told Rosenthal he had missed the flag-raising. Rosenthal said he was still going to the top of the mountain to see what was taking place.

Meanwhile, a Marine officer had decided that the original flag was too small and ordered a more impressive one raised. Rosenthal reached the top of the mountain in time to capture this second flag-raising -- an authentic event, not staged or orchestrated by Rosenthal in any way. After the flag had been raised, Rosenthal took a second photo of the soldiers standing around the flag.

When Rosenthal's film was sent back to the U.S., it caused a sensation. People wanted to know more about it. Lowery told someone that he, not Rosenthal, had captured the original flag-raising. Then, someone asked Rosenthal if he had staged the photo. Rosenthal did not yet realize that his flag-raising photo had become a national icon and thought he was being asked about the second photo, the photo of the Marines standing around the flagpole. Rosenthal answered that, yes, he had staged the photo.

According to an interview Rosenthal gave AP in 1995, he spent the intervening decades trying to defend his reputation and put down the rumor that he had staged one of the best-known, most-recognized news photographs in history.

"The Pulitzer Prize Photographs: Capture The Moment" is on display at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts until Aug. 20. The museum is located between Broadway and Demonbreum in downtown Nashville.