10 things about American Photography

One man takes centre stage, standing on a street adorned with American flags celebrating the 200th anniversary of the United States. Ming Smith was one of the few women in Kamoinge, a group of Black photographers who came together from 1963. They organized exhibitions, exchanged work, and inspired each other.

Photography takes many forms, such as this curiobox filled with portraits of roommates, bound together by artfully woven mousetraps. This cherished object serves as a microcosm of American photography—a time capsule that encapsulates an important and influential visual culture.

This pattern of ice flowers simply demanded to be photographed and preserved for its beauty. It was captured during an era when such practices were far from common, and few could have imagined that photography would one day evolve into a fully recognized art form.

Because colour photographs were nearly impossible in the first half of the 20th century, the Philadelphia firm of Brandle & Smith had black-and-white photographs coloured by hand. This almost timeless photograph could have been made by Warhol decades later.

This photograph of a young man radiates pride and self-awareness. The subject was a client of James Van Der Zee, one of the best-known portrait photographers from Harlem. During the Harlem Renaissance, in the years 1920-1930, art, music, and club life flourished in this New York district. Powerful, stylish portraits became an important element in this cultural resurgence.

Irene Poon was a central figure in the promotion of Asian-American artists. She documented a life that she knew and loved in a series of powerful portraits, such as this photograph of her sister Virginia surrounded by chocolate bars behind the counter in her shop.

Amanda López is proud of her Mexican roots and expresses this in her work. She took this photograph for a fashion shoot, with her twin sister and three friends posing in a ‘lowrider,’ a car customized to hang low on the road. Lowriders are a cultural phenomenon within the Mexican-American community that has been passed down from generation to generation.

The portraits made by Bruce Wrighton, a relatively unknown photographer who died young, are as soft as the pink cardigan worn by this girl at the carnival. Without any thought of effect, he asked people such as the girl or the woman doing shopping to pose. This allowed Wrighton to literally immortalise his subjects in a candid, honest, and dignified manner

Born to Russian immigrants in California, Hy Hirsh started as a still photographer and cameraman at Columbia Studios. During the 1930s he held a number of solo exhibitions and later transformed into an experimental filmmaker. He also began to take colour slides in which he played with transparency and depth, experimenting with light, warmth, and vibrations in a series of colour abstractions

Poet, etcher, exhibition organizer, founder of Chicago’s etching society, and a member of the Wild Flower Preservation Society—Bertha Evelyn Jaques was a creative all-rounder. Yet, her botanical photograms on cyanotype paper, over a thousand in total, were unjustifiably overlooked until recently. This photogram, capturing a spray from a tree in Honolulu, stands out for its clarity and detail.