[Street Scene at Night]

Pim Van Os

ca. 1950 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

A member of the innovative Subjective Photography movement that emerged in Germany following World War II, Dutch photographer Pim Van Os is best known for experimental imagery like this unusual street scene. Using a long exposure and photographing at night, Van Os transformed the street into a dense montage of reflections, streaks from headlights, and fragments of signage. In a reversal of the prewar New Vision convention of the streetscape in which the pedestrians move in a static urban scene, the central figure anchors this image, serving as a human foil to the incessant motion of the city flowing around him.

Artist

Pim Van Os

Date

ca. 1950

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1996