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The Streets of New York:
American Photographs from the Collection, 1938-1958
September 17, 2006 - January 15,
2007
Photographers working
in New York City in the years between the publication of Walker Evans' American
Photographs in 1938 and Robert Frank's The Americans in 1958 profoundly
changed the course of American photography. This fertile period in art history
is celebrated in the National Gallery of Art's exhibition of some 75 photographs
by twenty prominent artists. The Streets of New York: American Photographs
from the Collection, 1938-1958 is on view in the photography galleries,
West Building, Ground Floor, from September 17, 2006 through January 15,
2007.
The exhibition, organized by the National Gallery of Art,
Washington, includes key works by Evans and Frank; candid studies of children
by Helen Levitt; vibrant and gritty compositions of the streets and street
life by Louis Faurer and Ted Croner; evocative and lyrical views of the
urban landscape by Roy DeCarava, Saul Leiter, and David Vestal; bold depictions
of New York bars and nightclubs by Lisette Model; photographs of joy and
alienation at Coney Island by Sid Grossman, Leon Levinstein, and Bruce Davidson;
and disturbing photographs of New York's latent violence by William Klein
and Weegee, among others.
The Exhibition
The artists featured in the exhibition were not part of
an organized group, although many studied with Alexey Brodovitch, art director
of Harper's Bazaar 
and founder
of the Design Laboratory, or Sid Grossman, who taught classes at the Photo
League and in his New York apartment. However, this generation of photographers
shared a common vision and objective: to record their personal responses
to the vivid and often violent city surrounding them. Encouraged by the
teachings of Brodovitch and Grossman, they consciously broke many of the
accepted rules of photography-they used available light, allowed forms to
be blurred, out of focus, and offkilter-in order to reveal the city's
energy and pace, vitality and vulgarity. Unlike their predecessors, their
goal was not simply to document the city but to recreate their experience
of it. Organized by photographer, the exhibition highlights the novel techniques
favored by these new artists, and their choices of subject matter and composition.
(right: Faurer, Louis, American, 1916 - 2001 "Champion,"
New York City , 1948/1949, gelatin silver print, image: 23.2 x 33.4
cm (9 1/8 x 13 1/8 in.), sheet: 23.3 x 33.7 cm (9 3/16 x 13 1/4 in.),
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Joshua P. Smith Collection, 2001.128.3
)
Among the photographs featured, Walker Evans' subway portraits
created between 1938 and 1941, are some of the most iconic portraits of
the period, and helped usher in the new era in photography. Evans created
the photographs by concealing a 35mm camera under his coat-its lens protruding
between his buttons and a shutter release down his sleeve. Relying entirely
on chance and intuition, Evans did not raise the camera to his eye to frame
the photograph, nor did he adjust the focus or exposure. This stealth allowed
him to photograph subway riders without their knowledge and thus capture
them in "naked repose," as Evans noted. The pictures that resulted
are raw -- full of energy and emotion -- and marked a dramatic break from
the highly composed photographs that had preceded them.
Helen Levitt studied with Evans in 1938 and 1939. Like
him, she used a 35mm camera, but quickly developed her own fluid, graceful
style, making tender, often witty photographs of children at play. Instead
of the close-up, confrontational style favored by some of her contemporaries,
Levitt preferred to frame an entire scene, giving her photographs a strong
narrative appeal.
The photographer popularly known as Weegee began his career
covering fires that occurred overnight when the regular photographers were
off duty. Soon he was photographing the murders, fires, and accidents of
the troubled city. By wiring his room to pick up signals from the police
radio dispatcher, Weegee was often one of the first to arrive at scenes
of violence and catastrophe, earning him his nickname (after the Ouija board)
for his seemingly uncanny ability to know where disaster was going to strike.
In contrast to Evans' and Levitt's photographs, Weegee's works, such as
Copkiller (Booked on Suspicion of Killing a Policeman -- Anthony Esposito,
Accused "Copkiller") (1941), are often shocking and filled
with a gritty immediacy.
In the mid-1940s Louis Faurer moved from his hometown of
Philadelphia to New York, where he met and shared a studio with Robert Frank.
Not as interested in violence as Weegee, Faurer claimed the "hypnotic
dusk light led him to Times Square," where he photographed daily, immersing
himself in the culture of postwar America and reveling in the occasionally
bizarre aspects of the city.
Viennese-born Lisette Model was another highly influential
figure at this time. Soon after she moved to New York in 1938, she found
that her direct and uncompromising photographs perfectly suited the aggressive
character of the city. Alexey Brodovitch often published her photographs
in Harper's Bazaar, but she most strongly exerted her influence
on other photographers through the courses she taught at the New School
for Social Research in New York. Diane Arbus, whose early work is also included
in the exhibition, was one of her most wellknown students.
William Klein, a native New Yorker, spent the decade after
World War II in Paris studying painting with Fernand Léger and taking
up photography. He returned to New York to work for Vogue, but
also began to experiment with photography on the city streets using a wide
angle lens, extreme close-ups, and harsh printing methods. A recurring
theme in his work is children at play with toy guns. These photographs,
such as Boy + Gun + Girl, New York (1955), are a startling juxtaposition
of innocence and violence, humor and aggression.
The exhibition also features examples of photography books
from the National Gallery of Art library. Inspired by Evans' American
Photographs (1938), many photographers aspired to publish their own
books. Unlike commercial magazines, books allowed photographers creative
control over the format and content of the book. Books also provided them
with a means to circulate their work widely. Books by Evans, Weegee, Klein,
Roy DeCarava, and Frank are included.
Curator and Related Activities
The Streets of New York: American Photographs from the
Collection, 1938-1958 is curated by Sarah Greenough,
curator and head of the department of photographs, and Diane Waggoner, assistant
curator in the department of photographs, National Gallery of Art.
A film series, Noir on New York Streets, has been developed
in conjunction with the exhibition. The weekends of October 21/22 and 28/29
are devoted to a festival of films noirs set on Manhattan's streets and
avenues, gritty locations that serve as low and lurid milieu for the genre's
downontheirluck protagonists and alienated tough guys. Such
treasures as Kiss of Death (1947), Side Street (1950), Pickup
on South Street (1953), and The Naked City (1948) are included
in the program, concluding with Killer's Kiss (1955) on November
4. All films will be shown in the East Building Auditorium. For specific
dates and times, visit www.nga.gov/programs/film.shtm#series
.
On November 4, noted scholars Andy Grundberg, Jane Livingston,
and James Naremore will present illustrated lectures on the exhibition from
2:00 to 4:00 p.m., in the East Building Auditorium. The lectures will
be followed by a film.
Exhibition Support
The exhibition is made possible through the generous support
of the Trellis Fund and The Ryna and Melvin Cohen Family Foundation.
"This exhibition demonstrates the strength and vitality
of a very pivotal period in the history of photography in America,"
said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. "We are
indebted to the Trellis Fund and The Ryna and Melvin Cohen Family Foundation
for their continuing support of photographic exhibitions."
Information about the exhibition and links to related resources
can be found on the Gallery's Web site at www.nga.gov/exhibitions/amerphotoinfo.shtm
.
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