New York, NY

Louis Faurer

1951 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

One of the best street photographers working in New York during the 1940s and 1950s, Faurer possessed a rare instinct for gesture and a delicacy of vision that supersedes his reputation as a postwar fashion photographer. His empathetic images of people on the margins of society-beggars, street vendors, the disabled, social outcasts-contrasted with the excitement of urban life and acknowledged the deepening rift between the ideals of postwar American society and the reality of the individuals that comprised it. By 1951, when this work was made, a culture of conformity reigned in America, but its shiny, happy façade masked a widespread sociological anxiety. In this photograph, a spectral image of a street vendor with an "Old Lavender" box emerges from the shadows and forces an awareness of elements at the edge of our consciousness, the blind spots in our worldview.

Artist

Louis Faurer

Date

1951

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gift of Howard Greenberg, 2004