Exhibit Exalts New York's Early Radical Photographers : The Picture ShowThough you may not be familiar with the Photo League, as the group was called, you've probably seen the work of its photographers.
Exhibit Exalts New York's Early Radical Photographers
Claire O'Neill
In 1936, a bunch of young, idealistic photographers got together with a notion that they could provoke social reform through imagery. They turned their cameras mostly on the streets of New York — on shoemakers and street urchins and crowds at Coney Island.
Though you may not be familiar with the Photo League, as the group was called, you've likely seen the work of its photographers: Lewis Hine made iconic images of child labor and the construction of the Empire State Building, for example; and Dorothea Lange captured the famous Migrant Mother.
Steamfitter, 1920
Lewis Hine/Howard Greenberg Gallery/The Jewish Museum
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Lewis Hine/Howard Greenberg Gallery/The Jewish Museum
Many of the most noted mid-20th century photographers were members: Berenice Abbott, W. Eugene Smith, Ansel Adams, etc. After being blacklisted, the League was forced to disband in 1951 under pressure of the Second Red Scare. But today, the photographers are having a reunion in the form of a comprehensive exhibition. The Radical Camera is a collaboration between New York City's Jewish Museum and the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio.
Over the course of the League's 15-year existence, members saw the Great Depression, the New Deal, World War II and finally the Red Scare. They captured moments of levity and of darkness, both private and public. Above all, the League fostered conversations and collaborations that, in many ways, would set the standards of documentary photography for decades to come.
Halloween, South Side, 1951
Marvin E. Newman/The Jewish Museum/Courtesy of The Jewish Museum
The Wishing Tree, 1937
Aaron Siskind/The Jewish Museum/Courtesy of The Jewish Museum
Untitled (Tenements, New York), circa 1937
Consuelo Kanaga/The Jewish Museum/Courtesy of The Jewish Museum
Untitled (Dancing School), 1938, from Harlem Document
Solomon Fabricant/The Jewish Museum,/Courtesy of The Jewish Museum
D-Day Rescue, Omaha Beach, 1944
Walter Rosenblum/Columbus Museum of Art/Courtesy of The Jewish Museum
Spaghetti 25 Cents, New York, 1945
Ida Wyman/The Jewish Museum/Courtesy of The Jewish Museum
Easter Sunday, 1944
Elizabeth Timberman/The Jewish Museum/Courtesy of The Jewish Museum
Shoemaker's Lunch, 1944
Bernard Cole/The Jewish Museum/Courtesy of The Jewish Museum
Ideal Laundry, 1946
Arthur Leipzig/The Jewish Museum/Courtesy of The Jewish Museum
Butterfly Boy, New York, 1949
Jerome Liebling/The Jewish Museum/Courtesy of The Jewish Museum
Boy Jumping into Hudson River, 1948
Ruth Orkin/The Jewish Museum/Courtesy of The Jewish Museum
Chalk Games, Prospect Place, Brooklyn, 1950
Arthur Leipzig/The Jewish Museum/Courtesy of The Jewish Museum
Coney Island, circa 1947
Sid Grossman/The Jewish Museum/Courtesy of The Jewish Museum
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The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League, 1936-1951 opens Friday and will run through March.