New York’s Photo League (1936–51) played a vital role in the development of documentary and street photography. It offered classes, darkrooms, exhibition space, and fellowship for amateur and professional photographers. Most of its members were politically progressive, predominantly Jewish, first-generation Americans from working-class neighborhoods. Significantly, in a period when many camera clubs still denied them access, women composed approximately one-third of league membership, and many held leadership positions.
The Photo League created a record of urban life comparable to portrayals of rural life by FSA photographers. Scouring the city with lightweight 35 mm cameras that allowed them to work quickly and unobtrusively, league members captured spontaneous interactions, expressions, and gestures. By the mid-1930s, illustrated magazines such as Life and Look increasingly commissioned photographs, and several Photo League members freelanced for such publications. Women embraced the cameras as the ideal tool for portraying the modern city’s complexity and diversity.
If my photographs make the viewer feel what I did when I first took them—‘Isn’t this funny, terrible, moving, beautiful?’—then I’ve accomplished my purpose.
Bank of America Collection
© Sonia Handelman Meyer
Sonia Handelman Meyer (American, born 1920)
Children Leaving School
1940s
Gelatin silver print
Bank of America Collection
© Sonia Handelman Meyer
Informed by the Photo League’s humanistic agenda, Meyer portrayed immigrants, minorities, and children. She made photographs that emphasized the perseverance of her subjects in the face of adversity. Meyer’s body of work exemplifies the city she described as “rough-edged, tender and very beautiful in its diversity.”
Bank of America Collection
© Sonia Handelman Meyer
Sonia Handelman Meyer (American, born 1920)
Girl on Stoop, Spanish Harlem
1940s
Gelatin silver print
Bank of America Collection
© Sonia Handelman Meyer
Bank of America Collection
Courtesy Archives & Special Collections, University of Louisville, URL.
Esther Bubley (American, 1921–1998)
Greyhound Bus Terminal, New York City
1942-47
Gelatin silver print
Bank of America Collection
Courtesy Archives & Special Collections, University of Louisville, URL.
Like Margaret Bourke-White, Bubley traveled the world fulfilling assignments for Life magazine and corporate clients. For Standard Oil Company, she documented the impact of long-distance bus travel on American life and captured frank, compassionate images of passengers and employees.
Bank of America Collection
© Film Documents LLC, courtesy Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne
Helen Levitt (American, 1913–2009)
New York
about 1940
Gelatin silver print
Bank of America Collection
© Film Documents LLC, courtesy Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne
Regarded as New York’s unofficial visual poet laureate, Helen Levitt pursued a cool, detached approach to urban photography. She sometimes used an angled camera lens to capture people unawares. Levitt’s photographs of Harlem and the Lower East Side point to the private worlds of children at play.
Bank of America Collection
Helen Levitt (American, 1913–2009)
New York (Masks and Tree)
about 1940
Gelatin silver prints
Bank of America Collection
© Film Documents LLC, courtesy Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne
Bank of America Collection
© Lisette Model Estate
Lisette Model (American, born in Austria, 1901–1983)
Fashion Show, Hotel Pierre, New York City
1940–46
Gelatin silver print
Bank of America Collection
© Lisette Model Estate
Throughout her career, Model gravitated towards bustling streets and people in dive bars and elegant hotel lobbies. She once said, “When I point my camera at something, I am asking a question, and the photograph is sometimes an answer.” Her snapshot aesthetic and subjective viewpoint influenced later generations of photographers, including her student, Diane Arbus.
Modern Women/Modern Vision: Works from the Bank of America Collection has been loaned through the Bank of America Art in our Communities® program. This exhibition is presented with generous support from the donors to the Annual Fund Leadership Campaign and the residents who support the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD). Promotional support is provided by 5280 Magazine and CBS4.
