New York City

New York Photo League Exhibit Slated

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Drawing on the depth of two great Photo League museum collections, The Jewish Museum in New York City and the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio are collaborating on an exhibition of over 140 vintage photographs. The Radical Camera: New York’s Photo League, 1936-1951, a formidable survey of the group’s history, its artistic significance, and its cultural, social and political milieu, will premiere at The Jewish Museum from November 4, 2011 through March 25, 2012. The Radical Camera exhibition will then travel to the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH (April 19 &#8211 September 9, 2012)- the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA (October 11, 2012 &#8211 January 21, 2013)- and Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL (February 9 &#8211 April 21, 2013).

Artists in the Photo League were known for capturing sharply revealing, compelling moments from everyday life. Their focus centered on New York City and its vibrant streets &#8211 a shoeshine boy, a brass band on a bustling corner, a crowded beach at Coney Island. Many of the images are beautiful, yet harbor strong social commentary on issues of class, child labor, and opportunity. The Radical Camera exhibition explores the fascinating blend of aesthetics and social activism at the heart of the Photo League.

The innovative contributions of the Photo League during its 15-year existence (1936-1951) were significant. As it grew, the League would mirror monumental shifts in the world starting with the Depression, through World War II and ending with the Red Scare. Born of the worker’s movement, the Photo League was an organization of young, idealistic photographers who believed in documentary photography as an expressive medium and powerful tool for exposing social problems. It was also a school with teachers such as Sid Grossman, who encouraged students to take their cameras to the streets and discover the meaning of their work as well as their relationship to it. The League had a darkroom for printing, published an acclaimed newsletter called Photo Notes, offered exhibition space, and was a place to socialize, especially among first-generation Jewish-Americans.

The first museum exhibition in three decades to comprehensively look at the Photo League, The Radical Camera reveals that the League encouraged a surprisingly broad spectrum of work throughout extraordinarily turbulent times. The organization’s members included some of the most noted photographers of the mid-20th century &#8211 W. Eugene Smith, Weegee, Lisette Model, Berenice Abbott and Aaron Siskind, to name a few. The Photo League helped validate photography as a fine art, presenting student work and guest exhibitions by established photographers like Eugene Atget, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Edward Weston, among others.

These affecting black and white photographs show life as it was lived mostly on the streets, sidewalks and subways of New York. Joy, playfulness and caprice as well as poverty and hardship are in evidence. In addition to their urban focus, Leaguers photographed in rural America, and during World War II, in Latin America and Europe. The exhibition also addresses the active participation of women who found rare access and recognition at the League.

The Radical Camera presents the League within a critical, historical context. Developments in photojournalism were catalyzing a new information era in which photo essays were appearing for the first time in magazines such as Life and Look. As time went on, its social documentary roots evolved toward a more experimental approach, laying the foundation for the next generation of street photographers. One of the principal themes of the exhibition is how the League fostered a multifaceted and changing identity of documentary photography. &#8220A mixture of passion and disillusionment characterizes the Photo League’s growth, which led photographers away from objective documentary images and toward more subjective, poetic readings of life,&#8221 said Mason Klein, exhibition co-curator and a curator at The Jewish Museum. &#8220The tenets of truth in documentary photography laid down by League members were also challenged by them and ultimately upended by members of the New York School,&#8221 he added. Catherine Evans, exhibition co-curator and a curator of photography at the Columbus Museum of Art, observed that &#8220This museum partnership is an extraordinary opportunity to showcase two in-depth collections. Because the images continue to have relevance today, it is especially important that the exhibition will be seen in four U.S. cities, reaching as broad an audience as possible.&#8221

In 1947, the League came under the pall of McCarthyism and was blacklisted for its alleged involvement with the Communist Party. Ironically, the Photo League had just begun a national campaign to broaden its base as a &#8220Center for American Photography.&#8221 Despite the support of Ansel Adams, Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, Paul Strand and many other national figures, this vision of a national photography center could not overcome the Red Scare. As paranoia and fear spread, the Photo League was forced to disband in 1951.

The exhibition has been organized by Mason Klein, Curator of Fine Arts, The Jewish Museum, and Catherine Evans, William and Sarah Ross Soter Curator of Photography, Columbus Museum of Art.

Photo: Sid Grossman, Coney Island, c. 1947, gelatin silver print. The Jewish Museum, New York. Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery.

First Manhattans: The Indians of Greater New York

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The Indian sale of Manhattan is one of the world’s most cherished legends. Few people know that the Indians who made the fabled sale were Munsees whose ancestral homeland lay between the lower Hudson and upper Delaware river valleys. The story of the Munsee people has long lain unnoticed in broader histories of the Delaware Nation.

First Manhattans, a concise distillation of the author’s more comprehensive The Munsee Indians, resurrects the lost history of this forgotten people, from their earliest contacts with Europeans to their final expulsion just before the American Revolution.

Anthropologist Robert S. Grumet rescues from obscurity Mattano, Tackapousha, Mamanuchqua, and other Munsee sachems whose influence on Dutch and British settlers helped shape the course of early American history in the mid-Atlantic heartland. He looks past the legendary sale of Manhattan to show for the first time how Munsee leaders forestalled land-hungry colonists by selling small tracts whose vaguely worded and bounded titles kept courts busy—and settlers out—for more than 150 years.

Ravaged by disease and war, the Munsees finally emigrated to reservations in Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Ontario, where most of their descendants still live today. This book shows how Indians and settlers struggled, through land deals and other transactions, to reconcile cultural ideals with political realities. It offers a wide audience access to the most authoritative treatment of the Munsee experience—one that restores this people to their place in history.

Robert S. Grumet, anthropologist and retired National Park Service archeologist, is a Senior Research Associate with the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His numerous publications include The Lenapes and The Munsee Indians: A History.

Note: Books noticed on this site have been provided by the publishers. Purchases made through this Amazon link help support this site.

Brooklyn Museum Planning Keith Haring Exhibit

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Keith Haring: 1978-1982, the first large-scale exhibition to explore the early career of one of the best-known of American twentieth-century artists, will be presented at the Brooklyn Museum from April 13 through August 5, 2012. Tracing the development of the artist’s extraordinary visual vocabulary, the exhibition includes 155 works on paper, numerous experimental videos, and over 150 archival objects, including rarely seen sketchbooks, journals, exhibition flyers, posters, subway drawings, and documentary photographs.

&#8220We are delighted to have this exceptional opportunity to present this groundbreaking exhibition of these dynamic works created by one of the most iconic and innovative artists of the late twentieth century as his formidable talents emerged,&#8221 comments Brooklyn Museum Director Arnold L. Lehman. &#8220The works of art and the accompanying documentary material place in new perspective the development of this unique talent.&#8221

Organized by the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, by Raphaela Platow, Director and Chief Curator, and the Kunsthalle Wien, Austria, the Brooklyn presentation will be coordinated by Associate Curator of Photography Patrick Amsellem.

The exhibition chronicles the period in Keith Haring’s career from the time he left his home in Pennsylvania and his arrival in New York City to attend the School of Visual Arts, through the years when he started his studio practice and began making public and political art on the city streets. Immersing himself in New York’s downtown culture, he quickly became a fixture on the artistic scene, befriending other artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf, as well as many of the most innovative musicians, poets, performance artists, and writers of the period. Also explored in the exhibition is how these relationships played a critical role in Haring’s development as a facilitator of group exhibitions and performances and, as a creator of strategies for positioning his work directly in the public eye.

Included in Keith Haring: 1978-1982 are a number of very early works that had previously never before been seen in public, twenty-five red gouache works on paper of geometric forms assembled in various combinations to create patterns- seven video pieces, including his very first, Haring Paints Himself into a Corner, in which he paints to the music of the band Devo, and Tribute to Gloria Vanderbilt- and collages created from cut-up fragments of his own writing, history textbooks, and newspapers that closely relate to collage flyers he created with a Xerox machine.

In 1978, when he enrolled in the School of Visual Arts, Keith Haring began to develop a personal visual aesthetic inspired by New York City architecture, pre-Columbian and African design, dance music, and the works of artists as diverse as Alechinsky, Dubuffet, Picasso, Willem deKooning, and Jackson Pollock. Much influenced by the gestural brushwork and symbolic forms of the abstract expressionists, his earliest work investigated patterns made of geometric forms, which evolved as he made new discoveries through experimentation with shape and line as well as the media. He meticulously documented his aesthetic discoveries in his journals through precise notes and illustrations. In 1980 he introduced the figurative drawings that included much of the iconography he was to use for the rest of his life, such as the standing figure, crawling baby, pyramid, dog, flying saucer, radio, nuclear reactor, bird, and dolphin, enhanced with radiating lines suggestive of movement or flows of energy.

The exhibition also explores Haring’s role as a curator in facilitating performances and exhibitions of work by other artists pursuing unconventional locations for shows that often lasted only one night. The flyers he created to advertise these events remain as documentation of his curatorial practice. Also examined is Haring’s activity in public spaces, including the anonymous works that first drew him to the attention of the public, figures drawn in chalk on pieces of black paper used to cover old advertisements on the walls of New York City subway stations.

Keith Haring died in 1990 from AIDS-related complications. His goal of creating art for everyone has inspired the contemporary practice of street art and his influence may be seen in the work of such artists as Banksy, Barry McGee, Shepard Fairey, and SWOON, as well as in fashion, product design, and in the numerous remaining public murals that he created around the world.

Photo: Keith Haring, Untitled, 1978. Courtesy Keith Haring Foundation.

John Jays Manhattan Historic Walking Tour

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John Jay’s Manhattan, an historic walking tour sponsored by John Jay Homestead State Historic Site, will take place Saturday, October 15. Participants will meet in lower Manhattan, and step off promptly at 10:00 a.m., rain or shine. The cost of participation is $20.00 per person- members of the Friends of John Jay Homestead can participate for $15.00.

Founding Father John Jay, America’s first Chief Justice, was born and educated in New York City, and spent much of his life there. The walking tour will trace his haunts, visiting the locations of the places where he lived and worked as one of New York’s leading lawyers and politicians, as well as U.S. Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Chief Justice of the United States, and Governor of New York. The tour will recall the time when New York was the capitol city of a young republic, and present a reminder of how the geography and architecture of Manhattan Island have changed since the arrival of the first European settlers in the 17th century.

The walk will cover approximately 1? miles and take about two hours, proceeding at a leisurely pace over mostly level terrain. Comfortable footwear is highly recommended. The tour will both begin and end in lower Manhattan, convenient to several subway lines. Attendance is limited, and advance registration is required- payment is due in advance, and is non-refundable. To reserve your place and learn the tour’s initial gathering place, call John Jay Homestead at (914) 232-5651, extension 100.

John Jay Homestead State Historic Site is located at 400 Route 22, Katonah, N.Y. It is regularly open for guided tours Sunday through Wednesday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and at other times by appointment.

Frederick Law Olmsted:Abolitionist, Conservationist, Activist

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Da Capo Press has recently published Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted by Justin Martin, the author of biographies of Alan Greenspan and Ralph Nader.

Frederick Law Olmsted is arguably the most important historical figure that the average American knows the least about. Best remembered for his landscape architecture, Olmsted was also an influential journalist, early voice for the environment, and abolitionist credited with helping dissuade England from joining the South in the Civil War.

Frederick Law Olmsted is best remembered as the pioneer of landscape architecture in the United States. From the US Capitol grounds and Boston’s Emerald Necklace to Stanford University’s campus and New York’s Central Park, Olmsted was an artist who painted with lakes, shrubs, and wooded slopes. His stature and importance as an architect has been paramount in previous biographies, but his role as a social visionary, activist, and reformer has been frequently overlooked until now.

Justin Martin’s research shows Olmsted’s life to be a striking blend of high achievement, prodigious energy, and personal tragedy. He played a crucial role in the early efforts to preserve Yosemite and Niagara Falls, and designed Boston’s Back Bay Fens not only as a park, but also as America’s first wetlands restoration. As a former sailor, scientific farmer, and failed gold-miner, Olmsted brought wildly varied experiences to his works and career. His personal achievements were shadowed however by misfortune — a strained marriage, tense family life, and psychiatric institutionalization.

Olmsted accomplished more than most people could in three lifetimes. As a park maker, environmentalist, and abolitionist he helped shape modern America. At a time when open space is at a premium, he’s left a green legacy in city after city across North America. His early understanding of our need for open spaces, as well as spiritual and physical restoration in nature, has been a significant motivator for generations of environmental conservationists since.

Note: Books noticed on this site have been provided by the publishers. Purchases made through this Amazon link help support this site.

New Website Features Big Maps

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There is a new New York City addition to the Big Map Blog, a bird’s-eye view of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1885 made by noted print makers Currier & Ives. The image is freely downloadable by anyone at its highest resolution [8,999px ? 6,293px].

The Big Map Blog was begun in March and already has a considerable number of large, unusual maps. &#8220I came across many of the maps you’ll see on the Big Map Blog while doing research for a film I’m working on,&#8221 The Big Map Blog’s curator, who calls himself 59 King, reports. &#8220While searching, I found thousands of old, beautiful maps that are sadly being kept from the public that deserves them — sometimes by clumsy or unwieldy government ftp sites, and other times by archives with steep fees for research, and steeper fees for reproduction. I felt strongly that something should be done about this.&#8221

The site adds new maps five days a week. There are also several other NYC maps on the Big Map Blog, which can be found using the New York City tag.

NYGB Offers Cutting-Edge Genealogy Event

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On Saturday, September 24th, the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society will present Dick Eastman, Ruth A. Carr, and David Kleiman in a full-day program designed to enhance your online genealogical searches. The program will take place in the South Court Auditorium of the New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY.

Dick Eastman is the publisher of “Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter,” the daily genealogy technology newsletter with more than 60,000 readers worldwide. He will deliver two lectures: Genealogy Searches on Google: Extract the Most Genealogical Information Possible from Everyone’s Favorite Search Engine and The Latest Technology for Genealogists: An In-Depth Look at Today’s Technology.

Ruth A. Carr retired in 2008 as Chief of the Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, New York Public Library where she worked for 20 years. She will present a talk on Other Places Your Ancestors Might Be Hiding: “Non-Genealogy” Databases and Internet Resources to Explore.

A genealogist and family historian for over 35 years, David Kleiman co-founded and chairs the New York Computers and Genealogy Special Interest Group and serves on the executive council of the Jewish Genealogical Society, Inc. and on the Education Committee of the NYG&B. He will deliver two lectures: Rediscovering the Globe: Maps Online, GIS, Google Earth and Technology & Design: Looking Good in Print and on the Screen.

The program begins at 9:30 a.m. at the NYPL’s South Court Auditorium and will end at 5:00 pm- there will be a break for lunch on-your-own. Registration for NYG&B members is $60, non-members is $90. Register online at www.newyorkfamilyhistory.org. For additional information, contact Lauren Maehrlein, Director of Education, at 212-755-8532, ext. 211, or by e-mailing [email protected].

The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society has been a primary resource for research on New York families since 1869. The NYG&B seeks to advance genealogical scholarship and enhance the capabilities of both new and experienced researchers of family history through a rich schedule of programs, workshops, and repository tours- through its quarterly scholarly journal The NYG&B Record and its quarterly review The New York Researcher- and through an E-Library of unique digital material on its website www.newyorkfamilyhistory.org.

New iPhone Tours Relate Immigrant Experiences

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Past Preservers and Crimson Bamboo have launch two new historical walking tours related to New York History for Rama, an app for the iPhone. The first explores the construction of the Statue of Liberty- the second that takes you through the immigrants’ ordeal of Ellis Island. Both were written by Hannah Murray.

“From disembarkation to medical inspection to entrance into the land of opportunity (or, for the unlucky or politically unpalatable few, deportation back home), Hannah Murray’s Ellis Island shows this place as the hopeful immigrants who arrived her experienced it,” stated Michael Carroll, co-founder of Crimson Bamboo, the creator of the Rama app. “The tour recreates on your iPhone the history of this point of entry for the aspiring immigrants to whom over 40% of Americans trace their ancestry.”

Ellis Island is the sequel to Murray’s Land of Liberty tour, which captures the history and idealism behind the construction of the nearby Statue of Liberty. For $1.99 the tour continues to explore the theme of distinctive sites symbolic for Americans and their heritage, and the stories of the thousands of individuals who left the Old World for the New. It is illustrated with thought provoking and evocative contemporary archival photographs.

“I have been captivated by Ellis Island ever since I visited New York nine years ago,” explained Murray, who has previously worked as a volunteer at the Benjamin Franklin House in London, as well as at the British Museum. She describes history as her passion above all others and will shortly be taking a Masters degree in Public History at Royal Holloway. “I have studied the immigrant experience at university and the impact that it had on American society is what drew me to Ellis Island – the myth of an inclusive environment is somewhat dented by the restriction of Asian and eastern European immigrants, however. Photographs from the early 1920s show immigrants in detention pens, waiting to be sent back home, a part of Ellis Island which has been downplayed in contrast to the thousands leaving its shores to pursue the American Dream &#8212- a life which, for some, was never that smooth in reality.”

Rama can be downloaded from iTunes and was named as one of the ten best new travel apps by BBC Travel in 2010.

Historic Districts Council to Honor Landmark Lion

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The Historic Districts Council, the citywide advocate for New York’s historic districts and for neighborhoods meriting preservation, will present its annual LANDMARKS LION AWARD on October 26 to renowned preservationist Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel. Participating in the award ceremony will be architect and 2010 Landmarks Lion Award recipient Robert A. M. Stern, former governor Mario M. Cuomo and architect Hugh Hardy. Since 1990 the Landmarks Lion Award has honored those who have shown unusual devotion and aggressiveness in protecting the historic buildings and neighborhoods of New York City.

Throughout her 40-year career Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel has been a leading voice on some of the defining urban issues of our time, including the preservation of the historic built environment of our country. She was the first Director of Cultural Affairs in New York City and was the longest-serving Commissioner on the Landmarks Preservation Commission, under four New York mayors. She currently serves as the Chair of the Historic Landmarks Preservation Center and the Vice Chair of the New York State Council on the Arts. She is a founding Director of the High Line, a repurposed, elevated train line turned into a successful park on Manhattan’s west side.

Says Simeon Bankoff, HDC’s executive director, “Barbaralee’s vision of a city is one where not only do the people make the buildings, the buildings help make the people. Thanks to Barbaralee, we learn to look at New York as a continuum- a place where ideals flow from the past, defining our present and shaping our future.”

In regards to her work outside of New York City, she was appointed to the United States Commission of Fine Arts by President Clinton, and was the first woman Vice Chair of the C.F.A. in its 100-year history. Most recently, President Obama named her a Commissioner of the American Battle Monuments Commission, which has responsibilities related to the design, construction, and maintenance of military memorials throughout the world. In 2010, Barbaralee was appointed a trustee of the Trust for the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

As part of her activism, Barbaralee has broadened public awareness of the arts and culture through many media. She has used her rich experience with civic involvement as an interviewer/producer for seven television series about the arts, architecture, design, and public policy for Arts & Entertainment Network, and many programs for other networks. Over a hundred of her interviews are now available online, digitized by the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Video Archive at Duke University.

The author of 20 books on art, architecture, design, and public policy, Barbaralee’s encyclopedic work, &#8220The Landmarks of New York, V” will be published in September 2011 and is being accompanied by an 11-city traveling museum tour throughout New York State.

The Landmarks Lion Award dinner and ceremony will take place on Wednesday, October 26, 2011, at 6:30pm, at the Four Seasons Restaurant at 99 East 52nd Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues, Manhattan.

The Landmarks Lion Award is HDC’s major fundraising event and provides critical support for the broad range of educational and outreach programs that are crucial to HDC’s constituency which includes more than 500 neighborhood organizations. The Council is dedicated to preserving the integrity of New York City’s Landmarks Law and to furthering the preservation ethic. 2011 marks HDC’s 40th year of preserving the City’s historic neighborhoods.

For more information on the event or to purchase tickets, contact HDC at 212-614-9107, [email protected], or visit our website at www.hdc.org.

NYS Archives Online Exhibit of Rare 9-11 Images

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The New York State Archives, the nation’s largest repository of records of a state government, has introduced a new online exhibition entitled Ground Zero from the Air.

Based upon an archival collection of images commissioned from a private contractor by the New York State Office for Technology (NYS OFT), the website features aerial, infrared and computer generated imagery of Ground Zero, as well as photo images of recovery efforts. Also included
is a directory of related websites and New York State Government records contained within the New York State Archives related to the World Trade Center attacks and subsequent response efforts.

Principally accumulated during a series of flights that occurred between September 15 and October 22, 2001, the aerial imagery collected for NYS OFT was used to direct the efforts of first responders, identify unstable areas, pinpoint stairwells and elevator shafts, and coordinate removal of debris.

“As we consider the events of September 11, 2001 and the heroic efforts of first responders and, indeed, of many levels of local, state, and federal government in the weeks and months following the attacks, we at the New York State Archives committed ourselves to putting together an online exhibition that provided a unique look at this history event
for the 10th anniversary,” said New York State Archivist Christine W. Ward.

Ground Zero from the Air is the newest in a series of projects undertaken by the New York State Archives. Following the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, the New York State Archives was instrumental in the creation of the World Trade Center Documentation Task Force, a
multi-institution group committed to identification, collection and preservation of public and private records that chronicle the attack and its aftermath and to determine future steps necessary to insure that the historical record is as complete as possible for use by future
generations.

Ground Zero from the Air may be found on the New York State Archives webpages online.

Photo: Ground Zero seen from above. Courtesy the NYS Archives.