Photo League: New York 1936–1951
This exhibition is on view from 27 June 2025 to 11 January 2026
Jewish Museum
Admission: € 20.00
Photo League: New York 1936–1951 tells the story of a group of cutting-edge photographers who documented everyday life in New York City and how these pioneers of street photography used their cameras in the struggle for social change.
Social engagement
The Photo League started when America was in the middle of the Great Depression, a time of migration and social inequality. The League attracted photographers from all kinds of backgrounds: many were Jewish and a large number were women. They explored the city with their cameras, photographing workers, children, migrants and other marginalised groups, taking photos that combined artistic quality with political awareness, creating a visual idiom that was both empathetic and confrontational.
Innovative perspectives
Photo League photographers experimented with form, composition and perspective. They were developing a new style in a medium which was itself still relatively new. The exhibition features work by photographers such as Berenice Abbott, Weegee, Lisette Model and Walter Rosenblum.
In addition to their photography, Photo League: New York 1936–1951 also shows how the movement reflects the history of Jewish emancipation and solidarity with other communities, particularly New York’s Black population. This sense of mutual recognition between different groups experiencing exclusion and discrimination gave rise to innovative perspectives in photography.
Walter Rosenblum, Boy On Roof, Pitt Street, New York, 1938
-© Rosenblum Photography Collection, Courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.
Forgotten photography
The Photo League continued until the 1950s. This was the age of McCarthy, and members of the collective were accused of harbouring communist sympathies. The League had been blacklisted in 1947, and supporters and photographers drifted away. Eventually, it disbanded in 1951. Most of the women in the group vanished into obscurity: their careers came to a standstill.
Photo League: New York 1936–1951, created in collaboration with Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, is the first major European exhibition about this remarkable organisation. It tells the story of the League through photos, historical documents and previously unpublished interviews with former members.
The exhibition runs from 27 June 2025 to 11 January 2026 at the Jewish Museum.
Rebecca Lepkoff, Lower East Side
-© Estate of Rebecca Lepkoff, Courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York
Made possible by
This exhibition is made possible with the support of Stichting Collectieve Maror-Gelden Nederland, Stichting Levi Lassen, thanks to the participants of de VriendenLoterij, Stichting Maatschappij tot Nut der Israëlieten in Nederland, Ellen Edinoff en Koert Stuyf Fonds, Fotofonds Edward van Voolen, Prof. Dr. Herman Musaph Fonds, Jonas Daniel Meijer Fonds and Stichting Friends of the Jewish Cultural Quarter.
