The Wick List

Viewing Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography

The Wick Culture - Walker Evans, 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue, 1929 © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Above Walker Evans, 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue, 1929 © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Wick Culture - Arthur Leipzig, Divers, East River¸1948 © Estate of Arthur Leipzig, Courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Above Arthur Leipzig, Divers, East River¸1948 © Estate of Arthur Leipzig, Courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

The Wick Culture - Helen Levitt, New York¸1972 © Film Document LLC, courtesy Zander Galerie, Cologne/Paris.

Above Helen Levitt, New York¸1972 © Film Document LLC, courtesy Zander Galerie, Cologne/Paris.

The Wick Culture - Lewis Hine, Riding the Ball High up on Empire State, c.1930. Gelatin silver print.

Above Lewis Hine, Riding the Ball High up on Empire State, c.1930. Gelatin silver print.

The Wick Culture - Mary Ellen Mark, The Damm Family in Their Car, Los Angeles, California 1987 © Mary Ellen Mark, Courtesy of The Mary Ellen Mark Foundation.

Above Mary Ellen Mark, The Damm Family in Their Car, Los Angeles, California 1987 © Mary Ellen Mark, Courtesy of The Mary Ellen Mark Foundation.

The Wick Culture - Rebecca Lepkoff, New York, 1949 © Estate of Rebecca Lepkoff, Courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.

Above Rebecca Lepkoff, New York, 1949 © Estate of Rebecca Lepkoff, Courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.

The Wick Culture - Saul Leiter, Harlem, 1960. Chromogenic print.

Above Saul Leiter, Harlem, 1960. Chromogenic print.

Above Walker Evans, 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue, 1929 © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Above Arthur Leipzig, Divers, East River¸1948 © Estate of Arthur Leipzig, Courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Above Helen Levitt, New York¸1972 © Film Document LLC, courtesy Zander Galerie, Cologne/Paris.

Above Lewis Hine, Riding the Ball High up on Empire State, c.1930. Gelatin silver print.

Above Mary Ellen Mark, The Damm Family in Their Car, Los Angeles, California 1987 © Mary Ellen Mark, Courtesy of The Mary Ellen Mark Foundation.

Above Rebecca Lepkoff, New York, 1949 © Estate of Rebecca Lepkoff, Courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.

Above Saul Leiter, Harlem, 1960. Chromogenic print.

Dulwich Picture Gallery
College Road
London
SE21 7AD
28 July – 4 October

Framing America.

Dulwich Picture Gallery turns its attention to the American city this summer with Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography, a major exhibition tracing urban life across the United States through more than 100 works. Drawn from the Savings Bank Foundation DNB collection in Norway and presented with Lillehammer Art Museum, the show, curated by Alexander Moore, brings together landmark images from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco.

The exhibition begins in the early twentieth century, as American cities were being reshaped by rapid immigration and industrial expansion, as well as the quickly changing shape of the skyline. Lewis Hine’s Riding the Ball High up on Empire State, 1930, captures construction as spectacle and risk, while Alfred Stieglitz’s The Steerage, 1907, gives the modern image a hard social edge. Our personal favourite is Lisette Model’s Coney Island Bather, New York City from 1939-1941.

After the Wall Street Crash, photography became a tool for recording poverty, unemployment and migration. Works by Dorothea Lange and Margaret Bourke-White trace the impact of the Great Depression, while Walker Evans and photographers associated with the New York Photo League bring everyday urban life into focus, from crowded streets to communities under pressure.

Later sections move through Berenice Abbott’s changing New York, Helen Levitt and Saul Leiter’s street scenes, Roy DeCarava’s Harlem photographs and the restless eye of Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander. Mary Ellen Mark’s portrait of homelessness and Peter Hujar’s image of a community affected by the AIDS crisis work to bring the century’s harder realities into the spotlight.

Feel the dynamism of the NYC subway at the exhibition close, where culturally curious visitors are faced with walls of Bruce Davidson’s series, made between 1980 and 1985. His vivid photographs capture the compressed theatre of New York underground. Seen together, these works transform the American city into a living organism, built from faces, labour, class and movement. A compelling summer show for anyone interested in photography, cities and the stories caught between them.