The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League, 1936 - 1951

Lewis Wickes Hine
(1874–1940, born Oshkosh, Wisconsin)
Steamfitter, 1920
Gelatin silver print
Howard Greenberg Gallery

This portrait of a steamfitter at a powerhouse was one of hundreds Hine made of men and machines, a project that became a book called Men at Work. Elevating the worker to the status of an unsung “hero of industry,” Hine suggests a harmony between the mechanic’s physical prowess and the formidable machine.

Alexander Alland
(1902–1989, born Sevastopol, Ukraine)
Untitled (Brooklyn Bridge), 1938
Gelatin silver print
The Jewish Museum, New York, Purchase: William and Jane Schloss Family Foundation Fund

These views of the Brooklyn Bridge demonstrate two different approaches to documentary photography. The view at near left, taken from the Brooklyn side, focuses on the formal qualities of the bridge itself, while the straightforward depiction, taken from the Manhattan side, foregrounds the bridge as a site of labor and construction.

Consuelo Kanaga
(1894–1978, born Astoria, Oregon)
Untitled (Tenements, New York), c. 1937
Gelatin silver print
The Jewish Museum, New York, Purchase: The Paul Strand Trust for the benefit of Virginia Stevens Gift

Leftist political activism was a strong element in Kanaga’s work, beginning with her photographs of a labor strike in San Francisco in 1934. She provided photographs for progressive publications such as New Masses, Labor Defender, and Sunday Worker. Underlying this formal study of tenement laundry lines (a common motif in League imagery) is Kanaga’s empathy for the living conditions of the working class.

Morris Engel
(1918–2005, born Manhattan, New York)
Harlem Merchant, New York, 1937,
from Harlem Document, 1936–40
Gelatin silver print
The Jewish Museum, New York, Purchase: The Paul Strand Trust for the benefit of Virginia Stevens Gift

Aaron Siskind
(1903–1991, born Manhattan, New York)
The Wishing Tree, 1937, printed later, from Harlem Document, 1936–40
Gelatin silver print
The Jewish Museum, New York, Purchase: Lillian Gordon Bequest

Harlem’s legendary Wishing Tree, bringer of good fortune, was once a tall elm that stood outside a theater at 132nd Street and Seventh Avenue. When it was cut down in 1934 Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, the celebrated tap dancer, moved the stump to a nearby block and planted a new Tree of Hope beside it to assume wish-granting duties. A piece of the original trunk is preserved in the Apollo Theater on 125th Street, where performers still touch it for luck before going onstage.

Sol Prom (Solomon Fabricant)
(1906–1989, born Brooklyn, New York)
Untitled (Dancing School), 1938,
from Harlem Document, 1936 –40
Gelatin silver print
The Jewish Museum, New York, Purchase: Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund

Mary Bruce opened a dancing school in Harlem in 1937. For fifty years she taught ballet and tap, giving free lessons to those who could not afford them. Her illustrious pupils included Katherine Dunham, Nat King Cole, Ruby Dee, and Marlon Brando.

Harold Corsini
(1919–2008, born Manhattan, New York)
Playing Football, c. 1939, from Harlem Document, 1936–40
Gelatin silver print
George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, New York, Gift of Aaron Siskind

In its early years the League was committed to the idea of photography as honest and unmediated. A “true” and “good” picture was one in which aesthetic qualities did not overwhelm the content or subvert its message. Playing Football—one of Corsini’s most famous and iconic works—was considered too aestheticized by some members because of its emphasis on composition, rather than narrative.

Walter Rosenblum
(1919–2006, born Manhattan, New York)
D-Day Rescue, Omaha Beach, 1944
Gelatin silver print
Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, Photo League Collection, Museum
Purchase with funds provided by Elizabeth M. Ross, the Derby Fund, John S. and Catherine Chapin Kobacker, and the Friends of the Photo League

As a US Army combat photographer, Rosenblum landed in Normandy on D-Day morning. There he joined an antitank battalion that drove through France, Germany, and Austria. Rosenblum was one of the most decorated World War II photographers.

Weegee (Arthur Fellig)
(1899–1968, born Zloczów, Galicia, now Ukraine)
Max Is Rushing in the Bagels to a Restaurant on Second Avenue for the Morning Trade, c. 1940
Gelatin silver print
The Jewish Museum, New York, Purchase: Joan B. and Richard L. Barovick Family Foundation and Bunny and Jim Weinberg Gifts

Weegee (Arthur Fellig)
(1899–1968, born Zloczów, Galicia, now Ukraine)
Empire State Building, c. 1945
Gelatin silver print
The Jewish Museum, New York, Purchase: Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and Photography Acquisitions Committee Funds

© Weegee / International Center of Photography / Getty Images

Ida Wyman
(born 1926, Malden, Massachusetts)
Spaghetti 25 Cents, New York, 1945
Gelatin silver print
The Jewish Museum, New York, Purchase: Photography Acquisitions Committee Fund

This Italian restaurant was near the offices of Acme Newspictures, where Wyman became the company’s first female photo printer in 1943. After the war she lost her job at the agency. The “Ladies Invited” sign on the window is a reminder of a time when unescorted women were not always welcome in public dining establishments.

Jerome Liebling
(1924–2011, born Manhattan, New York)
Butterfly Boy, New York, 1949
Gelatin silver print
The Jewish Museum, New York, Purchase: Mimi and Barry J. Alperin Fund

This portrait of a young boy was taken near Knickerbocker Village, a public-housing complex on the Lower East Side that had replaced substandard tenements. Liebling’s empathy and respect for his subject may be seen in the direct connection he establishes with the child, who stares stone-faced into the camera.

Rebecca Lepkoff
(born 1916, Manhattan, New York)
Lower East Side, 1947
Gelatin silver print
Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, Photo League Collection, Museum Purchase with funds provided by Elizabeth M. Ross, the Derby Fund, John S. and Catherine Chapin Kobacker, and the Friends of the Photo League

An advertisement for the film Gentleman’s Agreement appears in this image of Lepkoff’s childhood neighborhood. The film addressed the persistence of anti-Semitism in America and won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1947. Its political message was scrutinized by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and two of its Jewish actors were placed on the Hollywood Blacklist.

Vivian Cherry
(born 1920, Manhattan, New York)
Game of Lynching, East Harlem, 1947
Gelatin silver print
The Jewish Museum, New York, Gift of the Artist

In the late 1940s Cherry documented violence in children’s games—cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, and these disturbing images of boys playing at lynching. The series was published by ’48 Magazine of the Year; Photography republished them in 1952, commenting, “The pictures are not pretty, but they do represent an attempt to . . . use a camera as a tool for social research.” Cherry had also submitted them to McCall’s, a women’s magazine, which rejected them as “a little too real for magazine use.”

Jerome Liebling
(1924–2011, born Manhattan, New York)
May Day, New York, 1948
Gelatin silver print
The Jewish Museum, New York, Purchase: Esther Leah Ritz Bequest

Here Liebling forgoes the traditional documentary approach seen in the adjacent view of the May Day parade by Jaffee. Liebling’s close cropping and emphasis on the individual rather than the group stresses the active participant’s perspective. The camera becomes a surrogate presence within the assembly, signaling a shift toward a greater subjectivity in documentary photography.

Rosalie Gwathmey
(1908–2001, born Charlotte, North Carolina)
Shout Freedom, Charlotte, North Carolina, c. 1948
Gelatin silver print
The Jewish Museum, New York, Purchase: Gay Block and Malka Drucker Fund of the Houston Jewish Community Foundation

Shout Freedom! was a celebratory musical about the American Revolution. Gwathmey captures the irony of the advertisement for black citizens in the Jim Crow South. She herself was familiar with civil-rights problems; her husband, the painter Robert Gwathmey, was subjected to surveillance and harassment by the FBI for his political activism. The blacklisting of the League in 1951 was the last straw: she destroyed many of her negatives and stopped making photographs.

Ida Wyman
(born 1926, Malden, Massachusetts)
Sidewalk Clock, New York, 1947
Gelatin silver print
Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, Photo League Collection, Museum Purchase, Derby Fund

This unique sidewalk clock, embedded by Barthman Jewelers on the corner of Broadway and Maiden Lane in 1898, is a hidden gem of New York’s former jewelry district. In 1946 it was estimated that 51,000 people unwittingly stepped on the clock between 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM each day. The clock, which was given a new face shortly after this picture was taken, still works today.

Erika Stone
(born 1924, Frankfurt, Germany)
Lower Eastside Facade, 1947
Gelatin silver print
Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, Photo League Collection, Museum Purchase with funds provided by Elizabeth M. Ross, the Derby Fund, John S. and Catherine Chapin Kobacker, and the Friends of the Photo League

Stone’s adroit cropping of this image emphasizes the coy upward gaze of the woman in the advertisement, away from the laundry line (emblem of poverty), and suggests the social mobility of the postwar era.

Marvin E. Newman
(born 1927, Manhattan, New York)
Halloween, South Side, 1951
Gelatin silver print
The Jewish Museum, New York, Purchase: Photography Acquisitions Committee Fund

This eerie image of children on Halloween hints at racial tensions at the dawn of the civil-rights struggle. The effect is heightened by the tight cropping, the children’s anxious expressions, and the close juxtaposition of masked and unmasked faces.