pictures at an exhibition

Arthur Leipzig focused his camera lens on New York for over fifty years. One of our city's first "street" photographers--a native, born in Brooklyn in 1918--he first stalked the alleys and night clubs as a staff photographer for a local paper PM. His work as documentary photographer is an all-encompassing history of the city. His unflinching work shows New York as it was (and is) rough around the edges, magnet for the rich and beautiful, and prison for the down-and-out. Using a police radio he installed in the trunk of his car, he would often arrive at crime scenes before the cops, capturing the raw violence of the day or night. His images of the streets, on assignment or on his own, show how acutely in tune he was to the life of the city--he understood intrinsically its streets, its poverty and poetry, its glamour and drama. No matter the event, his affection for his home is on view in every snap. Leipzig was never one to look for "the moment" in his work, rather, he sought to evoke a larger sense of humanity and emotion and time and place of his subjects. In the Preface to his book Growing Up in New York he wrote:

"The city was my home. As I look back at the work that I did during that period I realize that I was witness to a time that no longer exists, a more innocent time. While I know that the city has changed, that the streets are dirtier and meaner, the energy that I love is still there. No matter where I go, I keep coming back to photograph New York. Of course the 'good old days' were not all sweetness and light. There was poverty, racism, corruption, and violence in those days, too, but somehow we believed in the possible. We believed in hope."

"Simply Add Boiling Water," 1937 © Arthur Leipzig