Daily Picture Show

Exhibit Exalts New York's Early Radical Photographers

November 3, 20112:52 PM ET

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 hide caption

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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