Augustus Pugin, Entrance Hall, Old Exhibition of the Royal Academy when at Somerset House (detail)
Past Exhibition (view archive)
Naked City: Photographs from the Permanent Collection
When: May 10- August 21, 2011
Where: Focus Gallery
About the show
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center currently owns close to 3,000 works of photography ranging from nineteenth-century works by early innovators to master works by twentieth-century photography icons to the most cutting-edge contemporary work being made today. This exhibition, Naked City, is a small selection of the collection representing photographic scenes of urban life and including some of the most iconic images of social documentary and street photography made in America the last century. The exhibition takes its title from the acclaimed 1945 book of photographs by Weegee, which with its explicit tabloid-style images of Manhattan crime, crowds, and spirited nightlife, changed the face of American photography almost overnight. On view here are significant photographs by fourteen renowned photographers that favor directness, immediacy, and realism. The subject matter of the works explores architecture, alienation, personalities, everyday life, street scenes, family, poverty, and urban progress. Collectively, the artists in the exhibition portray the unique characteristics of the places they depict, and capture the true spirit and raw energy of twentieth-century urban life.